I have been to a couple of CCC events in my late teens'ish. Around 26C3.
Over all can recommend, at least as a groups. I used it to meet some online friends for the frist time. Wifi / wardriving nerds that I spend a lot of time with online.
But man, I think I have never been at a place with so many small negative experience with other people. Death by a thousand paper cuts. One older man out of nowhere loudly proclaimed I was Anti-semetic, because I was wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh. When sitting in the cellar in the "hacking area", friends of mine and me where coding on kismet or aircrack-ng, when someone from the neighboring desk asked what we where doing. After I told him he only lifted his nose slightly and with a smug smile said "Oh, that's what you call hacking today?"
At one camp, where there even was an event on photography, someone I met almost went into a rage every time he saw a camera. Not pointed at him, just someone with a camera. Off he went to tell the camera owner about how it was last camp and his opinion ..
Everything just minor interaction. But as a whole it's just not people I want to hang around with any more.
I’ve been a hacker since the Cap’n Crunch days, I’ve been involved with many hackerspaces around the world, used to sit at the pay phones in Union Station waiting for distant calls, some forgotten first Friday of the month .. and all I can say, anecdotally, is that this death by a thousand cuts is par for the course.
Hacker culture has been co-opted by a broad spectrum of folks - and a big part of the value of CCC is navigating that spectrum.
I’ve met plenty of folks that are annoying as fuck in this scene - but I’ve also met plenty of folks who are just great.
As for the camera thing - Germans have an aversion to being held accountable for their actions in public. It is a deep-seated fear of consequences born from a culture that literally thought it was acceptable, not so long ago, to spy on ones neighbors. They cram themselves into boxes upon boxes and live on top of 2000 other people they want nothing to do with. Just remind them, public photography is not a crime, and that there is no right to privacy in the public sphere, and why don’t they just smile and enjoy the fact that they are frozen in time on some strangers device, just like a strangers memory they have no right to erase. This is the needed context.
> Just remind them, public photography is not a crime
Photographing at CCC events (Congress and Camp) is permitted only if you get permission from all the people depicted on the photo. Yes, this makes wide shots of crowds effectively impossible to take there without breaking the event's rules. Everyone present there has agreed to that rule by coming there, so it's not unreasonable to expect them not to break it even if it's not a crime.
CCC is a private event and does not fall within the purview of the right to public photography.
Anyway, I don’t go to CCC to take pictures of people - although this is an unfortunate policy because it means that the culture of CCC is not recorded for posterity …
I think it would be a better policy for CCC to require photographers to wear a special easily recognized t-shirt or funny hat, so that they could take pictures of crowds but give non-participants time to dissent.
It’s a breath of fresh air IMHO to be at places far away from any desire for posterity. Just remember yourself what you’ve seen instead of outsourcing that job to your phone for a while.
A good variant of that would be to ask participants to wear an "opt in" signal, so we don't end up in a situation where people are burdened by having to repeatedly decline photographers' requests for photos.
The entitlement of "I can photograph whatever I want"-people is unmatched, which is nicely demonstrated by this thread. Disrespectful, entitled and self-scentered.... individuals.
There is a fine line, I agree - but I prefer to ask for forgiveness than permission when taking photo’s in public.
A society which censors the public sphere, endangers the public.
It’s a double-edged sword, and photography - like many technologies - can be weaponized against the individual; but it can also be used to gain justice against the crimes of the state.
The disrespect, entitlement and self-centered posturing goes both ways though, though.
“No, sorry, I wasn’t taking a picture of you, I was taking a picture of that cute dog - you just happened to be in the background, and I wouldn’t have anything to do with you if you weren’t so paranoid and self-centered…”
Public photography is a right which needs to be protected - by the public.
Just ask Rodney King. Or, you know, the children of Gaza. If you don’t know what either of those have to do with this discussion, you probably haven’t seen the photos…
C3 is not a public event. Neither are night clubs which decide to ban photography entirely. Taking photos is a right in the public sphere, a privilege in the private sphere.
No, I haven't "seen the photos", literally, since I am blind. Which is also why "asking for forgiveness" wouldn't work with me, because, you know, I wouldn't even notice if you didn't ask for permission. Which nicely demonstrates that you are faaaar more entitled then you might be willing to admit. Also, there are differences from country to country when it comes to laws. And what constitutes public spaces. And so on, and so forth. But IANAL, so I am not willing to enter a back-and-forth with you. Just know that your attitude isn't universally accepted as OK.
You are projecting and don’t seem to know the law. I do, having taken thousands of great photo’s all over Germany.
Do you want to live in a free and open society or not?
The fact is, the general public having the ability to take photo’s of the scene in front of them - idyllic or horrific - is essential to the continued operation of our society.
Familiar with the Rodney King case, by any chance?
You have no respect for the culture of the place and people you're interacting with.
"Use public data, protect private data" has been one of the main reasons in the CCC since the 80s, at the same time German Law and culture is different when it comes to taking pictures than what you seem used to. Maybe familiarize yourself with it before you break the law and claim everybody else is wrong.
I have a great deal of respect for German culture - this is why I live in a DACH state in the first place.
CCC is a private event and I absolutely concur that their policies are acceptable in that circumstance.
> German Law and culture is different when it comes to taking pictures than what you seem used to
No, in fact, I am quite familiar with the law - to the extent that I am prepared to defend my position.
One thing I don’t respect, is the German proclivity to repress the public sphere. You will never beat that out of me - I have seen the positive results of public photography deliver justice in plenty of cultures where it was desperately needed.
It is perfectly fine for me to take whatever pictures I want in the public sphere - as long as I respect others’ rights and wishes to not be the subject of that photography.
As a German I find it interesting that foreigners think that this is a cultural thing.
It is not. It's the law.
In Germany you are not allowed to photograph people without their written and signed consent. Any conference or event counts as a private event when it is organized on private property. If it's not a building or space owned by the city, it is private property. This includes e.g. swimming pools owned by the Stadtwerke (there have been lawsuits because of that, all decisions in favor of privacy).
For example, even cameras that protect your property by filming the outside area are not permitted to film the street, and they have to be arranged to point towards your own property. That's why even banks have cameras always on the corners of the building, pointing back to their own property.
Again, it's the law. It's pretty strict about this sort of thing, especially because of WW2 and post WW2 times, where a lot of people died because of Stasi misinformation or Zerstörungstaktik related things.
Source: was a helper and organizer of a lot of CCC events before 2021.
GDPR/DSGVO means you have to get written consent by all visitors, otherwise you cannot make photos of the event and publish them.
> Just remind them, public photography is not a crime, and that there is no right to privacy in the public sphere, and why don’t they just smile and enjoy the fact that they are frozen in time on some strangers device, just like a strangers memory they have no right to erase. This is the needed context.
Hacker events are not public places and they are free to set different rules on photography. Considering it's a privacy and counterculture thing their aversion is pretty understandable IMO.
> Hacker culture has been co-opted by a broad spectrum of folks
Seeing ourselves as better than the unwashed masses and dunking on noobs has been one of the defining characteristics of the hacker culture for as long as I remember. So was holding provocatively strong opinions about one's pet beliefs. Vi or emacs? MIT or GPL? Remember Tanenbaum dunking on Linus about how stupid his pet project was?
Granted, I wasn't around in the 1960s, but it was definitely a thing at least from the early days of Usenet.
I remember few places more toxic, than the informal IT forum of my university.
It went roughly like this, someone asking a noob question about the current course that week - and it was met by 2-5 very hostile toxic answers, variations of how stupid that person is for not knowing and how stupid for asking this way etc.
And then a exhaustive, clear and friendly answer, answering exactly, what was asked.
We are literally in Hacker News where the entire spectrum is on display, all for a little up-doot.
Sure, hackers have always been an arrogant lot. But it is only this century, since the finance bro’s joined the party, that its been so, so immensely profitable ..
> Just remind them, public photography is not a crime, and that there is no right to privacy in the public sphere
Some people are not going to be convinced by an argument that amounts to "that's the way it is so suck it up". I suspect those people are over-represented at hacker conferences.
> Just remind them, public photography is not a crime, and that there is no right to privacy in the public sphere,
That maybe true in some places. But it's a lot more nuanced in Germany. The "easy" one is publishing a picture where individuals are key to the picture (not background noise) that is clearly protected and requires permission.
It becomes a lot more complex when just taking a picture and not publishing it. There are arguments about this already being problematic due to processing of personal data etc.
However at CCC it becomes easy again: It's private ground, not public. And then they can forbid and be done. Then you need a legal argument about you taking a picture being more important than their rights. And no, American freedom of speech or so doesn't work.
It’s a double-edged sword, and I concur that public photography should not be weaponized against the individual.
However, if I see a crime being committed, you can be sure I will be taking photo’s and dealing with the personal consequences later.
I am on the “public photography is not a crime and I don’t need anyone’s permission to record my personal experience” side of the debate, because I think that a society which does not allow free and open recording of events in the public sphere endangers itself, immensely.
I know it is incomprehensible to a lot of Germans, but without public photography being an open and uncontrolled activity, we wouldn’t have had the civil rights movement in the USA.
We wouldn’t know what was happening in Gaza every minute of the day.
There is a duty to protect this right in a free and open society - not just the American version of it - not just to record incivility and injustice, but also to promote the changes of culture in a society over time.
Would modern Germans have as much self awareness and responsibility for their state, if there were no candid photos of Sophie Scholl for future generations to refer to? A society which eschews such occurrences, endangers itself - indeed, censors itself. Germans are, after all, pretty much used to censoring themselves - but I think this has its limits and should not be tolerated.
So, I claim and exercise this activity because I think, as a responsible member of a society, it is important to hold the camera up - at times.
For sure, if someone asks me, I will comply with their wishes - I have no desire to confront a stranger with embarrassment or harassment by their own personal image - but I also think its necessary to resist the roboticism on this issue, particularly in Germany.
You are mixing a lot of things here. For one, taking a picture of a crime happening as capturing evidence overrules the right to one’s own image, as does the freedom of the press when capturing images of events of public interest.
However what is not okay, and I find that pretty reasonable, is taking a picture of someone else unaware of having their picture taken. I don’t want somebody taking a picture of me going about my life, no matter if I look goofy or wear an extremely cool outfit. You don’t get to take a picture of me, and I won’t take one of you either.
That does absolutely not imply that you couldn’t capture scenes of importance for whatever reason, and that happens literally all the time.
Germany sits on the 14th position of the press freedom index - the narrative you’re trying to construct about some kind of repression on documenting events in the public sphere is just not true.
>However what is not okay, and I find that pretty reasonable, is taking a picture of someone else unaware of having their picture taken.
That is covered by the law. Background subject? Okay. Foreground subject, picture taken covertly? Not okay. This is well understood.
>.. the narrative you’re trying to construct about some kind of repression on documenting events in the public sphere is just not true.
It’s only a matter of a generation or two, feeling entitled to privacy in a public space, until it is widespread ‘common knowledge’ that nobody can take pictures of anybody. That’s how these things work.
During a regular trip I observed some thugs harassing a woman and her dog in a public park in Berlin. I took their picture, they came to threaten me with violence and insist I delete it - I stalled long enough for the lady to make the call and I waited until the cops arrived.
The cops were grateful that there was a very definite picture of one of the thugs kicking her dog. They made the decision on the spot that I was not to be fined, and the lady thanked me. I sent her and the cops the picture, and I deleted it from my roll.
Yes, if a crime is committed or such there is a reason. That over weighs other reason. But 99% of everyday situations aren't that.
Then there is the other side: some I dividuals have very good reason for not being tracked. Be it key witnesses to some major crime, somebody taking a clear side on israel-palastine-conflict. Etc. These are few, too, just like crime.
In the middle are the "normal" people. For them is maybe a potential minor nuisance if their spouse sees they weren't they assumed to be or when the boss sees them in a private outfit or something.
And then there is German culture, which did quite some research in how two different dictatorial regimes used surveillance and which effort they took and how innocent people got into Stasi files and into total surveillance.
And then we have the technology. Hiding cameras and mics is trivial these days. And cloud vendors doing facial recognition on all pictures uploaded (including faces far in the background - sometimes I am fascinated how well even my locally hosted immich works and identifies my brothers where I am not sure which one it was ... while it sometimes still fails) which makes that a tough balance.
I agree, it’s a tough balance, which is why both sides of the position need to be evaluated carefully.
I’m not advocating a return to stasi levels of surveillance (although the German state is already well and truly in those woods) .. but I also believe that in a free and open society, it should be possible to celebrate the humanity of the world we live in.
I have decades of photos’ of German life. It is an immensely beautiful country, from the perspective of that archive. I would hate for my kids to not have that opportunity.
> (although the German state is already well and truly in those woods) ..
There is an issue. I see the bigger issue in Big Tech. What Google (or Apple or palantir or ...) knows about me, even if I manage to fully block them on my side. They get about half the email I send (Germany has strong alternatives like gmx but many people use it etc.), they know who got me in their address book, when we talk, they see pictures of me when others sync their photos to Google photos, including Geo data, ... Compared to such collections the state is weak. And they are completely outside of our jurisdiction. For a German government I at least got a vote. Even if just one of 60 million (eligible voters on Germany on federal level)
> but I also believe that in a free and open society,
It however must also be free for the one who doesn't want to be on pictures. One's freedom is the other's unfreedom.
Everything you post on the internet is subject to Stasi-level surveillance. Nobody has a way to know the picture you take won't be posted on the internet.
> Just remind them, public photography is not a crime, and that there is no right to privacy in the public sphere
That is completely incorrect in Germany. If the person photographed is in any way the center of the picture and not just one of 20 people in the background, you have to ask for permission first.
FWIW, it isn't just CCC. Most previously relatively private events/groups have now acquired professional influencers ( including more recent dashcam shaming trend ), snake oil peddlers or clout chasers. We just had midwest vintage computer expo here and while some things did get better, some things parent said immediately triggered the comparison.
I don’t really understand what you’re saying, could you expand on it? MWVCE is a private event, the organizers can set the policy at the door - are you saying that folks were not willing to comply with the policies?
What I am saying that the cultural zeitgeist has changed sufficiently that it is very, very different from the one of only 20-30 back. Way back when I was but a wee lad, we didn't go around taking pictures of strangers for public entertainment almost regardless of public facing policies regarding said strangers. It is a very different frame of mind. I think I can officially say farewell to that world.
Do you believe in the preservation of history and culture for the benefit of the future?
I don’t take pictures of random strangers for entertainment - I take pictures of the beautiful, open, public spaces I visit, which happen to have people in them.
The notion that a society should not be free and open in this regard is, frankly, repressive.
You know, I kinda used to be with you until about few years ago we went to a park in Utah, where, and I swear this is true, a line of influencers were waiting to pose for a specific landmark to preen at camera for their allotted time. In other words, I no longer care about repressive. I will even go as far as to say that some of this silliness has to be repressed.
I think Germany is not the same as the US in regards to expectations of privacy in public when it comes to photography. Also there are plenty of signs and warnings at CCC to respect privacy and not take pics without consent…
Yes, Germany absolutely has a right to privacy in the public sphere
It's a nuanced right that has to be weighted against other rights and societal benefits. On the street it's usually easy: your picture can contain crowds or people who are there incidentally, but if you point the camera at a person you need their consent. But at a gathering like the CCC even being an identifiable member of the crowd might create issues for people, and you have to take that into account as photographer (both ethically and legally)
Well, having lived there I'd describe it thus: You might get shouted at for taking a harmless picture at a conference; They brag about their great "data protection" laws, and the same same day you read in the news how yet another of their universities got hacked and how some incompetent government agency leaked the sensitive private information of hundreds of thousands of their citizens. Not that anyone cares or that anyone would get punished for it. But don't you dare forget adding cookie popups to your website or trying to build a finance app without extremely invasive and questionable KYC.
> They brag about their great "data protection" laws, and the same same day you read in the news how yet another of their universities got hacked and how some incompetent government agency leaked the sensitive private information of hundreds of thousands of their citizens.
I would claim those people from Germany who are very privacy-minded indeed have a huge distrust of these data collections exactly because they know that sooner or later someone will crack these systems.
>if you point the camera at a person you need their consent
In public spaces (streets, squares, etc.), you may generally photograph people without consent for purely private/non-commercial purposes, as long as it is not intrusive, secretive in a way that invades privacy, or shows them in a state of helplessness, intimacy, or compromise (the latter can also trigger criminal provisions under § 201a StGB).
Casual or incidental street photography is usually fine; highly targeted or harassing photography of individuals can still violate general personality rights.
However - the key rule (Recht am eigenen Bild under §§ 22–23 Kunsturhebergesetz / KUG) mainly restricts publishing or publicly displaying recognizable images of people, not merely taking them in public.
This is a distinction many Germans do not quite comprehend - but it is also the case that it’s not very well understood in the USA, too.
Disclaimer: I am a recordist, I am responsible for a few well-received (even by the original artists themselves) bootleg recordings of famous gigs, I have a strong bias towards recording public environments and a heavy aversion to any censorship, whatsoever. Given that, however, if someone asks me not to take their picture, I first give them the option of receiving a copy for their own purposes, and if they decline, I respectfully delete.
> I have a strong bias towards recording public environments and a heavy aversion to any censorship, whatsoever.
This is a balancing of legally protected interests [Güterabwägung] between privacy and censhorship. Independently of what the law may say, many Germans are strongly biased towards privacy here. Be also aware that in Germany the strong US-American concept of "free speech" does not exist; the laws that do exist are weaker.
> Given that, however, if someone asks me not to take their picture, I first give them the option of receiving a copy for their own purposes, and if they decline, I respectfully delete.
Why not ask for permission instead of objection? (even if, as you claim, the formal written law may be on your side)
> Why not ask for permission instead of objection?
Because in most cases it was never my intention to photograph a stranger - they imposed this into the conversation by contacting me - most of the time I’m taking pictures of a lovely park, or a nice flower arrangement, or the broken beer glasses in the street after Carnival - and it is only after being interrupted that I offer the option. I certainly do not take photographs of random strangers unless it somehow captures the idyl of the scene, usually.
And in many cases actually, the conversation starts off irritable but ends quite friendly, especially if the photo is a good one and the person changes their mind and wants a copy.
It is possible to pivot from annoyance to friendliness. Especially if one understands the laws and the reasoning behind them. Ask for forgiveness, not permission.
> it was acceptable, not so long ago, to spy on ones neighbors.
It'still acceptable by the way. I had a guy whom I swear I have seen for the first and last time, allegedly my neighbour, call me by my first name and comment on my garbage-separating habits
Yes indeed, there is an undercurrent of this culture still lurking in the shadows.
I think it’s a consequence of the architecture, personally.
Germans aren’t actually used to having a lot of privacy - I often cringe when I hear my neighbor flush their toilet, and I live in an ‘innenhof’ surrounded by the noisy lives of a vast array of cultures, yelling at each other and having sex and calling their kids back in from the yards for dinner. We all live on top of each other, and for some people this is reason enough to snoop.
>garbage-separating habits
This is a make or break issue for a lot of Germans, it’s true. I personally believe its because the maintenance costs of the apartment/communal living waste admin are borne by all tenants, so this gives folks the idea that they have a ‘right’ to police each other over it.
I’ve learned my own quirks over the years, living in DACH states. I recently found myself seriously judging people by the nature and form - and indeed, strategic availability - of the house shoe spoon. If there isn’t one, you’re about to enter the house of a heathen. If there is one, but it’s small, a sadist. If it’s a long one, strategically placed right by the spot you’re expected to deposit your shoes - a mensch. If it’s wooden, a hippy mensch. If it’s metal, a right-wing mensch.
I’m sorry, Oida, I can’t help it. The shoe spoon is a social indicator! (Edit: I’m joking, a metal shoe spoon doesn’t make you a fascist - its more of a mental game I play while taking off my shoes at a new friends’ house, and I do have to say I am correcting myself on this habit of pigeon holing on the basis of the nature of ones shoe spoon, although I find it amusing as a mental game I do recognize its a prejudice I’m forming in my old age…)
Being intrusive is one thing. But this guy apparently waited until I was bringing out my garbage and go back, rushed to the paper bin to see my name and checked the quality, all without me seeing him, repeatedly, and I believe he did that with other neighbours too. That's basically a second job
Ugh yeah I'd hate that. Here the bins are just in the street. And nothing is personalized. People do watch what you put in but more to see if there's something valuable.
German here. I never thought this was about privacy, but there is definitely a tendency to follow the rules because they are The Rules regardless of how much sense they make - and then judge others by it, or go into Cover Your Ass mode because you fear to be judged yourself.
> If it’s a long one, strategically placed right by the spot you’re expected to deposit your shoes - a mensch. If it’s wooden, a hippy mensch. If it’s metal, a right-wing mensch.
I got a long one, made of metal, but I never knew it makes you right-wing! I just bought it because it's by far the most sturdy one available and I absolutely can't stand the plastic (or small) ones.
It doesn’t actually make you right-wing, I’m just kidding around - as someone who has broken more than my fair share of ethically sourced bamboo shoe spoons, now replaced with a metal one, I am fully taking the piss.
But, it’s more that I caught myself formulating this opinion after being in a DACH culture for some time. I think this is DACH’ness, seeping into my mindset ..
Former freelance camera operator who worked in Germany here: you are misrepresenting the legal situation. It is not automatically forbidden to take or even publish pictures of strangers, but the circumstances matter. Merely taking an identifiable person's picture can already infringe their personality rights, even without any intention to publish it. A request to delete it does not automatically settle the matter, but "we are in public" does not settle it either. See BGH, VI ZR 272/94 .
Publishing such a picture generally requires consent under § 22 KunstUrhG , with exceptions under § 23 . "There is no right to privacy in the public sphere" is simply not an accurate description of German law. And "not a crime" does not mean something cannot violate someone's rights.
The comparison with memory ignores what makes a recording different: it can be copied, distributed and matched against other records. Someone remembering my face does not give them the same capabilities as having a photograph of it.
And protecting personal information is hardly some recent corruption of hacker culture. The CCC's own ethics say "Make public data available, protect private data", an addition they date to the 1980s: CCC hacker ethics .
I think you will find that our opinions are in alignment actually. I never take pictures of strangers - in all cases where I have been asked to review such public pictures, the individuals have been incidental to the subject in focus.
CCC is a private event, though. They have every right to the policies they enforce, and I am perfectly fine with adhering to these policies when I attend - after all, I also do not want my photo in some spook database.
But, on the bus? In the park? On a sidewalk in a public street? It is unreasonable to censor these environments.
The law very stringently allows for public photography - it does not allow for weaponization or commercialization of that photography against an individual.
This is very much true. I have met some if the coolest people in CCCs but also some of the worst people. I miss the atmosphere but I don't miss the selfimportant assholes everywhere.
I just wish I could get Floral Mate here, the Tschunk is not the same without it.
ETA: it was actually the Russian invasion of Ukraine that broke my perception of German people and thus CCC for me. But that's a different story.
> it was actually the Russian invasion of Ukraine that broke my perception of German people and thus CCC for me.
Wdym?
I'm German and kinda wanna know.
My personal view on the matter is that Germany should not have - in any way - participated. There was no treatment with Ukraine. The Russian invasion was unconscionable, but ultimately doesn't matter if you hadn't entered into a defense contract before the event.
From my perspective this whole thing is like someone not paying their insurance premium and then having a random assortment of insurers offer options to them. Simply because theyre geographically close.
And it's not like the massive amount of money being thrown at them is actually being appreciated either. Yes I know they're supposedly only borrowing the money, but anyone with half a brain knows that Ukraine will default as soon as the war ends, effectively wiping the slate.
I hold the same position for any other initiatives that the German politicians throw money around for outside of its own borders
We don‘t support Ukraine because we‘re very good and selfless people. We support Ukraine (still too little!) because we don‘t want the Red Army at the Rhine.
That's a fair point, but kinda moot from my perspective considering the currently polling party results.
Both the Left part and AFD are essentially just going to sell Germany out to Russia, and the remaining parties are seemingly too inept to change the trajectory.
Most Europeans think we aren't doing nearly enough to support Ukraine, and here you are counting your pennies. Wow. One of the worst things I've read all week.
I wholeheartedly support actually finally starting proper support instead of this slow trickle.
Isn't Ukraine basically just bearing the brunt of whatever would've happened to Germany if Ukraine didn't happen to be in the way. If you think this is only about Ukraine you're wrong.
It sounds insanely entitled to just talk about "money", you know how many Ukrainians have died and suffered so you can safely sit in Germany on your nice computer and whine about money?
> I hold the same position for any other initiatives that the German politicians throw money around for outside of its own borders
Before the Russian invasion in 2022 Germany imported on average US$25 billions worth of goods from Russia each year. Dominated by crude oil and natural gas.
At the time it was seen as good business, because the prices were good and German economy enjoyed the benefit of cheap energy for decades. But Putin was just waiting for the real payment and the real payment is Ukraine.
It would be unfair to blame it only on Germany, because whole Europe was importing a lot of fossil fuels from Russia and financing Russian economy and Russian army, but Germany had the biggest share and biggest hope that the invasion will be quickly over.
while that may be average german behavior, and while that is the reason i didn't enjoy living in germany i have been to many german tech events and i have to say that they are usually not the average germans there. well, i was mainly at FOSS events, so maybe the FOSS community is what makes it different.
They are run by different people, though there is a lot of cross contamination and groups going to both.
I think the real difference is the setup, CCC is in a exhibition hall, while events like WHY are on a field and require you to camp.
In that regard, you can compare CCCamp (what is different from CCC) more with WHY.
Consequences of gathering a bunch of neurodivergent people. I used to go to FOSDEM but I can’t with being around so many people with poor social skills and poor showering skills again.
This is the same for all social environments. People can be bound to their ideology without ability to converse or reasoning with simplistic ideas. Often such people require a build up of interaction before the ability to persuaded them.
To the camera, some people want a historical time capsule and others want to live in the moment unarchived. People are more capable of being themselves without a picture which can redefine the moment in a thousand words which as no binding to reality. Or they want to be a ghost to limit possible future repercussions.
No, it definitely is not. But there are some that are similar. For example my partner is involved in the anime / magic the gathering / cosplay scene and I can see the parallels. Just exhausting.
But for example in the Techno / Festival scene, not just as a guest, but as a worker that much much rare to meet a person that exhausts me.
> One older man out of nowhere loudly proclaimed I was Anti-semetic
There's a bit of fringe-political subculture worth knowing here. Most self-proclaimed antifascist groups in Europe are made up of leftists who side with the Palestinians, and in Germany that scene has a long history of friction with old-school "anti-imperialists", often fairly authoritarian communists. The "antideutsche" current grew out of a rejection of exactly that, dating back to reunification in 1990, when part of the radical left decided the real danger was Germany itself. It started as a mostly intellectual critique, but in practice it came to mean waving the Israeli flag at every opportunity and giving grief to anyone in a keffiyeh.
> someone I met almost went into a rage every time he saw a camera.
The rage may be too much but the taboo on taking photo that is real and cultural normal that will be enforced or made to feel embarrassed for doing (i.e. 'lets not be the stasi'). That's the cultural norm of there and that scene. You visited from the states, correct? Bay area but the guess "small negative experience" - the idea of we are going around experiencing things and our life is a product of these experiences we consume and interpersonal politics - that's very california "the personal is the political" or that it's some how a consumption experience we "have" and who we "are" is coloured by these "experiences" etc (a fish in the water "what is water?")
One thing in German culture I very appreciate (as australian) is the "polite complaining" as in - you know a German cares if they will share with you what is wrong (and then they will have solution) as Australian we just complain about the big things (but never on your mates or people on your level) hehe "the government" etc - German - politely complain (and here's the patch) etc hehe In both cases it's a sort of affection or closeness if they tell you what they really think
it's not seen negative it's seen like 'of course we have feelings good and bad' etc
All generalising of course.
This could I see easily clash with american culture where often it's positivity all the time and it's seen taboo to say something bad - as if it's letting down the 'team' or it must be personal again 'you' or something - where as kinda truthfulness and integrity seen as the thing there - say as it is or as feel etc
Also another thing you might notice (probably less in Hamburg but in Berlin or something) in winter you want to go for a swim - that's the spa. Everyone is naked. This can come a shock to, say, a culture like the US that had the puritans - that people being naked is not sexualised any way. Actually the US because the norm is "naked" = "naked fun" that can lead to perhaps the most confusing cultural mishap. This might be related to photos also. For instance - in Australia it's increasingly less common people sunbath naked. In east europe and nordics - being naked in spa is just common.
Also: new years eve - they try to blow up everything. In a civilised city it blew my mind to see folks firing guns in the air.
Yes! There's some differences.
Saying that: there's assholes everywhere and don't let the 5-20% allocation of asshole influence your opinion of the 80% of the cool calm quiet
Hmmm... this comment is long... I may be the asshole. Ok,
> Bay area but the guess "small negative experience" - the idea of we are going around experiencing things and our life is a product of these experiences we consume and interpersonal politics - that's very california "the personal is the political" or that it's some how a consumption experience we "have" and who we "are" is coloured by these "experiences" etc (a fish in the water "what is water?")
you might be giving them another small negative experience. you've certainly given me one.
Not sure anyone responsible for how you feel, but I accept you feel that way, and that is regretable! Please forgive (if something I said affected negatively), and perhaps (well ... certainly) I could be better expressing. I just typed it out in haste
And quite averse/backwater (choose your version) on using debit/credit cards. Which is mindblowing from my Easter European perspective. I didn't use cash in a decade.
But not how you think, in this instance. I think Berlin has more places of questionable legality which require cash for presumably tax avoidance reasons.
They don't see security cameras because there are very, very few in Germany and the few that exist are in train stations, or private areas like INSIDE a business, or INSIDE a private estate, pointing inwards since they're seldom allowed to film outwards
Yes. Datapoint: the underground garage of the complex where I used to live experienced a large number of thefts (including my motorbike), and in 6 years we never managed to install security cameras because you need unanimity for this, and there's always someone who is concerned about their privacy.
> the idea of we are going around experiencing things and our life is a product of these experiences we consume and interpersonal politics - that's very california "the personal is the political"
That's a very superficial reduction of the meaning of that phrase. It's worth reading the original 1969 essay with that title:
> The bad things that are said about us as women are either myths (women are stupid), tactics women use to struggle individually (women are bitches), or are actually things that we want to carry into the new society and want men to share too (women are sensitive, emotional). Women as oppressed people act out of necessity (act dumb in the presence of men), not out of choice. Women have developed great shuffling techniques for their own survival (look pretty and giggle to get or keep a job or man) which should be used when necessary until such time as the power of unity can take its place. Women are smart not to struggle alone (as are blacks and workers). It is no worse to be in the home than in the rat race of the job world. They are both bad. Women, like blacks, workers, must stop blaming ourselves for our “failures.”
The author was dealing with and responding to very real oppression, and pointing out in part that day-to-day interactions were consequences of, and contributors to, that oppression. That's one sense in which "the personal is political."
The introduction also points out where the overall insight came from:
> However, many on the SCEF [Southern Conference Educational Fund] staff, both men and women, ended up joining the criticism of women getting together in consciousness-raising groups to discuss their own oppression as “[navel]-gazing” and “personal therapy”—and certainly “not political.”
> They could sometimes admit that women were oppressed (but only by “the system”) and said that we should have equal pay for equal work, and some other “rights.” But they belittled us no end for trying to bring our so-called “personal problems” into the public arena—especially “all those body issues” like sex, appearance, and abortion. Our demands that men share the housework and childcare were likewise deemed a personal problem between a woman and her individual man.
In that context, the personal was political in a very concrete, direct sense.
Somewhat amazingly, John Stuart Mill addressed this as long ago as 1869 - a full hundred years before The Personal Is Political, in his essay The Subjection of Women:
> “But was there ever any domination which did not appear natural to those who possessed it? ... Those who enjoy the benefit of an institution or a social arrangement, have a strong interest in believing that it is just; and they are rarely slow in finding arguments to convince themselves of what they wish to believe."
Another Australian checking in, living in a DACH country with life experience in most of them .. Germans are averse to social culpability in ways that Australians (and Americans) are not .. whereas in the US you’ll get a neighborhood watch person on your case for not cutting the grass in the right direction, in Germany you’ll get a grumpy unwashed totalitarian who literally thinks you’re gestapo because you took photos in the public park. Actually, come to think of it, you’ll get a grumpy German complaining about the grass cutting too, never mind that analogy.
Basically, westerners need to realize that the war shock is still reverberating through DACH cultures - remember, German’s were perfectly okay with having their neighborhoods ‘cleansed’ of those their state considered inferior - and then had to suffer decades of persecution for it - whereas Americans see themselves as victors in the freedom game, which is quite pathetic because the freedoms enjoyed in German streets on the regular would have half the American nation birth kittens in conniptions.
I’ll never forget how relieved I felt when I first cracked open a beer on the street in Germany. I don’t do it often, it’s not a thing I really see myself doing a lot. But just the idea of being able to take a couple beers to the park on a picnic with my new German girlfriend, and take a few naughty pictures of her (at her request and with full consent), washed away all the pretense I had, having (at the time) recently relocated from California, where I literally witnessed kids getting their heads bashed in by police for complaining about getting a ticket for having an unopened six pack in the back seat…. I don’t fear German cops, I find them completely amusing. I do everything I can to avoid American cops.
But you know .. Australians too, have their quirks in this regards. I’ve never met a more uncouth nation, frankly. The vitriol and invective I encountered, visiting my homeland again, just for speaking a bit of German on the train with my kids, was overwhelming… from little old ladies who should know better than to challenge a well-traveled cosmopolitan sandgroper on the subject of language. Oh, how their faces vacuumed into themselves once I explained that I was, in fact, Australian, and that I consider anyone who only speaks a single language vastly inferior to those who speak many - just as the original caretakers of the stolen land did!
All in, I prefer living in a DACH nation than either Australia or USA, unwashed totalitarian personalities notwithstanding. It’s just a more relaxed culture, all things considered. The war shock reverberates, but in the corners of it all you will find a lot more free thought than most of the western world.
And that’s another great reason to go to CCC and see for yourself: the freedoms of thought on display.
> One older man out of nowhere loudly proclaimed I was Anti-semetic, because I was wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh.
Yep, and tell that to anybody who got either kicked out of the country or lost their livelihood by commenting against the Palestinian genocide in the social media.
It's very easy to get into actual dehumanising rhetoric and genocidal slogans ("from the river to the sea"); but nobody actually cares enough to fire you for voicing your opinion on a middle eastern conflict.
Unless you're working in the US military or intelligence services, where being biased in favour of proscribed organisations can be seen as a potential for leaking state secrets to terror organisations or sanctioned states like Iran.
But that's not unique to Iran, it would be true of Russia, Cuba, North Korea- I totally understand the irony from Orange in Chief and his ties to Russia, but that's something else.
because with that kind of camera you are showing that photography is your hobby/passion and not just trying to shoot pictures of people who don't want to be photographed. (there was a conference recently where you could choose a different color lanyard indicating whether you didn't want to be photographed or whether you didn't mind. i think a very good approach to the issue. don't take photos of anyone with a red lanyard)
If you live in Germany and would like to experience this on a smaller scale THIS WEEKEND, come to the CCC conference in Dresden, called Datenspuren, run by our local CCC Erfa-Kreis C3D2. It takes place from 18.09 - 20.09 in Zentralwerk Dresden.
It is a beautiful and inclusive environment that highlights not only a lot local hackers, but also a lot of artists.
I was there last year and it was amazing! I totally recommend it.
You can find more info about the event and the featured talks and events here:
Oh yeah? And I know people who do extreme sports with an extreme schedule whilst simultaneously breastfeeding. None of this invalidates the people who find any of the above to be too stressful.
I’ve been to congress, will probably attend more too. Some people find the schedule to suck, some don’t. I do not believe it will ever change. I think it is reasonable to find the schedule hectic. My pet theory that this one soft way of keeping the congress more about the chaos communications club rather than it becoming a tech/hacker conference with a strictly international audience. And that is fine.
Perhaps and thats wonderful for these people but stating that only 20 and single can go to the congress is as generic as my response.
The congress was always booked out, its not that the congress has any attendance issues and its not that OP never had the chance to visit and never will have the chance to visit when his/her kids get older.
I actually know several people who regularly visit the 3C with their families and children. There are a lot of cool activities for kids from a certain age (10-ish). Even without all the social programm, there are plenty of talks which are interesting to non-IT people.
I agree that the timing is suboptimal in a family context, or at least it was when the kids were younger. Now that they are tech-savvy teenagers, I took them with me last year, and they enjoyed exploring the congress both with me and on their own. My wife is fine with it and enjoys some me-time after Christmas.
I take the whole family. There is something for everyone there and Christmas in Germany is next level. Even kids. Every parent should want kids to see that kind of creative energy to model as they mature. My wife will not go to Defcon but she loves CCC.
Lots of families there every year and older folks too, it’s actually a great date for a lot of IT folks as there aren’t many weeks when companies are effectively shut down, maybe even only this one week.
Yeah, would be feasible if tickets wouldn't be so hard to get for externals. Ain't no way my partner would hang out for a year every week with me in a hackerspace
I have absolutely no connection to CCC whatsoever and yet whenever I wanted to go to a CCC event (3 Camps and 2 Congresses so far, the first time in 2015), I could and when I wanted to take my partner with me, I could do that too. You just have to be fast to get the tickets before they're sold out, that's pretty much all there is to it.
Depends on when it was. Congress was less popular in the past so you could get a ticket.
Nowadays, most tickets go to hackerspaces and volunteers but the open sale sells out in seconds.
Camps are much easier to get to.
I did get my tickets volunteering for like a decade but last year I gave up - volunteering the whole event so I get a chance to go to the next event ... where I would volunteer the while event. That's not a good time.
Especially when there's more and more volunteers competing for work so they get a voucher - while the oldschoolers have no need for any of that because they can always get a ticket through backchannels.
Funny how CCC managed to recreate the worst aspects of capitalism as part of their leftist conference.
> Depends on when it was. (...) Nowadays, most tickets go to hackerspaces and volunteers but the open sale sells out in seconds.
2016 and 2019. That's how it was back then as well and that's what I meant by "you have to be fast" - fortunately the ordering system is reasonable and you don't have to type your data in within seconds, all you need is to be there in time. Back then there were three open sale rounds (but I see there were just two last year), I got my tickets in the second round for 33C3 and in the first one for 36C3.
I moved to central Silicon Valley where it all began hoping to have an endless supply of hackers building communities to hang out in. I can count on one hand the people that meet my definition of a hacker that do things for public good or personal curiosity rather than profit... in 10 years. It is a buy culture, not a build culture. "Engineers" who cannot install operating systems for themselves anymore and rely on a Genius Bar when they have a computer oopsie.
And Defcon... the average attendee is a corporate ghoul who only got into this for money, and has no care for anything they cannot readily leverage to further their careers. Even the privacy village has no idea how to use open source software let alone self host anything and just asks people to sign up to their slack, discord, and google groups. It is a disgrace.
But CCC really is the closest place I can go on the planet to hang out with tens of thousands of real hackers, most of which are not even employed in the industry, who just build incredible things with open source as a community because they can. Art everywhere, punk concerts in the bathrooms, their own phone networks built from scratch, underground bars built from scrap wood, no questions asked bring-your-own-server farms, and volunteer culture at its best.
Truly, going to CCC every year I can is how I get hope for the culture that might be possible in the valley again some day. I am going to do whatever it takes to bring that energy back to the valley to motivate all the smart minds here that their skills exist for more than creating shareholder value.
In the past it was "The Usual Suspects", now it is "Model Citizens". Back then smoking indoors at conferences was a topic hackers would discuss. Now I'm sure it will be a very serious conference full of grown-ups.
Will not be able to attend this year :'-) Have to ask friends to get me a "Model Citizen" shirt!
For me the smoking hall going away was a turning point in the culture at CCC for the worse. Sitting there and smoking weed with random people are some of my favorite memories. It feels less like disneyland for hackers each year
I tried it last year at every slot and had no chance at all.
Lots of tickets could be found on "Kleinanzeigen" after that and I think the club was quick to get them deleted and try to contain Scalping as much as possible.
With the newer, bigger location, I hope chances are better for a solo person. Hackerspaces have a reserved package I think, but I'm not really affiliated with those in my area, so that's not really an option for me.
For now I got a hotel reservation, that's just as important... :-D
I don't think there is outsiders vs the rest. Either you propose content, accepted talks or workshops, and you can come or you buy a ticket. Everybody has the same "chance". If you miss the ticket but really want to come you can try your luck at the entrance, there are usually always some people who can't make it but it's of course a bet.
I remember a mechanism where you could redeem a single-use invite token, which would return another single-use token when consumed, which could then be chained idefinitely. Local CCC groups where given a few such tokens to get their members and friends in.
Yea, I'm trying to figure out how to attend. I've been PD approved to go, but I can't figure out how to plan around getting a ticket, booking airfare, etc
Hacker conference: against authoritarian government, with talk about security, privacy, opsec etc.
Also: can only buy ticket online with credit card and real name, no onsite sell available, your name is probably give to conference administrator for checking ticket, he will probably give it to third parties or keep it for "good reasons", etc.
Don't get me wrong, I like the talks, they are very good. It is just a bit funny for me. They can't try harder to be hackers? Or is it like this in germany always?
I believe when you sign in at the door they don't give you any identifier, just a wristband identical to everyone else's. They are trying to prevent ticket scalping, however.
I don't expect them to give any data to anyone besides the payment processor, and knowing the CCC, their own system is probably either self-hosted or at a European cloud vendor. Bank transfer is a payment option, so you don't have to use an American card network - when you use a European bank transfer, no data goes to America on purpose (they are presumably still wiretapping it).
When I was at CCCamp, there was a power outage that included the network hub, and the network was down for an additional half hour while they tried to find the person with the disk encryption password of the DHCP server.
If you're looking for an event where you don't have to use a credit card I can recommend the Gulaschprogrammiernacht in Karlsruhe. It has a similar vibe and is funded entirely by donations and the sale of goulash.
That's the official position. I'm pretty sure, but of course I'm not suggesting you do so, that if you pay with a prepaid credit card and call yourself Random Person you will have no problem. As I said in another thread you can also just show up and buy ticket cash at the entrance from whomever sells them, but of course you risk not getting a ticket. Depends on your concerns. I'm pretty sure if you have a better solution but such large scale event you can contribute directly.
I'm also pretty sure if you have something genuinely uniquely valuable to contribute but can only participate anonymously you can contact organizers and they'll find a way, regardless of ticket availability.
> Hacker conference: against authoritarian government, with talk about security, privacy, opsec etc.
> Also: can only buy ticket online with credit card and real name, no onsite sell available, your name is probably give to conference administrator for checking ticket, he will probably give it to third parties or keep it for "good reasons", etc.
I am indeed quite certain that many hackers in Germany independently already devised the same thoughts ...
Go to the local smaller CCC conferences, where you can pay with things like GNU Taler or cryptocurrency, and the entry is often free anyway, with a donation being appreciated or buying event merch being a nice alternative to simply donating.
I think the hacker spirit is definitely alive & kicking in those smaller CCC events.
I'd never heard of GNU Taler but the FAQ left me even more confused.
> Can I send money to my friends with Taler?
Taler supports push and pull payments between wallets (also known as peer-to-peer payments). While the payment appears to be directly between wallets, technically the operation is intermediated by the payment service provider which will typically be legally required to identify the recipient of the funds before allowing the transaction to complete.
Also the funds have an expiration date (forced spending). Who is this for? My naive read seems like it has all the downsides of bitcoin and more with none of its upsides
It's the usual open source problem of building a protocol and neglecting the network that runs it... Imagine a perfectly coherent messaging protocol... what are the messages that are sent? Out of scope! Just use our protocol!
The doc won't point it out explicitly and I apologize if my explanation offends anybody, but the intention is basically leftist, state-friendly bitcoin. The authors took a look at the anarchy of real cryptocurrencies and realized they don't actually like anarchy, so instead they want to make something "wholesome" that governments would be willing to go along with (since they can tax it).
They are funded by EU and banks in an attempt to claw back some market share from cryptocurrencies which are slowly getting banned.
> The doc won't point it out explicitly and I apologize if my explanation offends anybody, but the intention is basically leftist, state-friendly bitcoin. The authors took a look at the anarchy of real cryptocurrencies and realized they don't actually like anarchy, so instead they want to make something "wholesome" that governments would be willing to go along with (since they can tax it).
While this is correct, I want to add a point:
Many hackers are not per se opposed to taxation (how else should public services be financed), but deeply distrustful about the red tape involved (the taxation laws in Germany are insanely complicated). Basically, their attitude is: if the government wants to tax "my" cryptocurrency, it is the government's responsibility to make the taxation laws as elegant, privacy-conscious and hassle-free as humanly possible.
In other words: if the government does not create taxation laws that are as hassle-free and privacy-conscious as possible (in a very strong sense: if in terms of effort (including the time to understand and apply the laws), it is much easier to ignore the laws than to turn in your taxes, the government failed its job), the government failed its job, so it does not deserve a concession from the cryptocurrencies' developers side.
> In addition, charging an exchange fee would allow the central bank to implement negative interest rates, if deemed necessary. The central bank could also impose a conversion limit per customer for AML/CFT (“cash” limits) or financial stability reasons (to prevent hoarding or bank runs), if desired.
Well goody.
The idea of blind signatures is cool, as is the fact that the merchant doesn't need to identify the customer, as is the fact that you could deploy neat local currencies with something like this, but AFAIK you still can't give 20€ to your friend without the exchange knowing and approving, or it becoming a race to see who spends the tokens corresponding to the 20€. And that's not very privacy-preserving.
IIRC isn't part of the idea that there are multiple central banks, you can choose which one you want to use, and currencies are exchanged automatically when needed?
To others reading, it's just gimped Chaumian ecash, as the privacy is removed for the receiver. It actually seems like it could be useable now (was just terrible for a long time) but Cashu (bitcoin based ecash) is streets ahead.
I can pay cash at store, cinema, museum and not give my name. Why not at conference too? And it is not only this conference, all of them require it now.
The politics of C3 is mixture of older anarcho communist hackers and contemporary progressive statists. So against authoritarian government, if it's right-wing, and privacy to protect against surveillance capitalism (rather than from the state).
So things like bitcoin are not liked as they're outside of the state and money should be a function of a benevolent left-wing state.
I'm pretty sure you are making a straw man here. Bitcoin is disliked because it's hyper-capitalist and a huge waste of energy, not because it isn't the state.
It's often been a pun combining the technological and political, at least in recent years. Last year's motto was Power Cycles. The previous year was Illegal Instructions. The one before COVID was Resource Exhaustion and the one before that was Refreshing Memories.
I have been to a couple of CCC events in my late teens'ish. Around 26C3.
Over all can recommend, at least as a groups. I used it to meet some online friends for the frist time. Wifi / wardriving nerds that I spend a lot of time with online.
But man, I think I have never been at a place with so many small negative experience with other people. Death by a thousand paper cuts. One older man out of nowhere loudly proclaimed I was Anti-semetic, because I was wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh. When sitting in the cellar in the "hacking area", friends of mine and me where coding on kismet or aircrack-ng, when someone from the neighboring desk asked what we where doing. After I told him he only lifted his nose slightly and with a smug smile said "Oh, that's what you call hacking today?"
At one camp, where there even was an event on photography, someone I met almost went into a rage every time he saw a camera. Not pointed at him, just someone with a camera. Off he went to tell the camera owner about how it was last camp and his opinion ..
Everything just minor interaction. But as a whole it's just not people I want to hang around with any more.
I’ve been a hacker since the Cap’n Crunch days, I’ve been involved with many hackerspaces around the world, used to sit at the pay phones in Union Station waiting for distant calls, some forgotten first Friday of the month .. and all I can say, anecdotally, is that this death by a thousand cuts is par for the course.
Hacker culture has been co-opted by a broad spectrum of folks - and a big part of the value of CCC is navigating that spectrum.
I’ve met plenty of folks that are annoying as fuck in this scene - but I’ve also met plenty of folks who are just great.
As for the camera thing - Germans have an aversion to being held accountable for their actions in public. It is a deep-seated fear of consequences born from a culture that literally thought it was acceptable, not so long ago, to spy on ones neighbors. They cram themselves into boxes upon boxes and live on top of 2000 other people they want nothing to do with. Just remind them, public photography is not a crime, and that there is no right to privacy in the public sphere, and why don’t they just smile and enjoy the fact that they are frozen in time on some strangers device, just like a strangers memory they have no right to erase. This is the needed context.
> Just remind them, public photography is not a crime
Photographing at CCC events (Congress and Camp) is permitted only if you get permission from all the people depicted on the photo. Yes, this makes wide shots of crowds effectively impossible to take there without breaking the event's rules. Everyone present there has agreed to that rule by coming there, so it's not unreasonable to expect them not to break it even if it's not a crime.
https://events.ccc.de/congress/2025/infos/fundamentals-and-f...
CCC is a private event and does not fall within the purview of the right to public photography.
Anyway, I don’t go to CCC to take pictures of people - although this is an unfortunate policy because it means that the culture of CCC is not recorded for posterity …
I think it would be a better policy for CCC to require photographers to wear a special easily recognized t-shirt or funny hat, so that they could take pictures of crowds but give non-participants time to dissent.
It’s a breath of fresh air IMHO to be at places far away from any desire for posterity. Just remember yourself what you’ve seen instead of outsourcing that job to your phone for a while.
A good variant of that would be to ask participants to wear an "opt in" signal, so we don't end up in a situation where people are burdened by having to repeatedly decline photographers' requests for photos.
The entitlement of "I can photograph whatever I want"-people is unmatched, which is nicely demonstrated by this thread. Disrespectful, entitled and self-scentered.... individuals.
There is a fine line, I agree - but I prefer to ask for forgiveness than permission when taking photo’s in public.
A society which censors the public sphere, endangers the public.
It’s a double-edged sword, and photography - like many technologies - can be weaponized against the individual; but it can also be used to gain justice against the crimes of the state.
The disrespect, entitlement and self-centered posturing goes both ways though, though.
“No, sorry, I wasn’t taking a picture of you, I was taking a picture of that cute dog - you just happened to be in the background, and I wouldn’t have anything to do with you if you weren’t so paranoid and self-centered…”
Public photography is a right which needs to be protected - by the public.
Just ask Rodney King. Or, you know, the children of Gaza. If you don’t know what either of those have to do with this discussion, you probably haven’t seen the photos…
C3 is not a public event. Neither are night clubs which decide to ban photography entirely. Taking photos is a right in the public sphere, a privilege in the private sphere.
No, I haven't "seen the photos", literally, since I am blind. Which is also why "asking for forgiveness" wouldn't work with me, because, you know, I wouldn't even notice if you didn't ask for permission. Which nicely demonstrates that you are faaaar more entitled then you might be willing to admit. Also, there are differences from country to country when it comes to laws. And what constitutes public spaces. And so on, and so forth. But IANAL, so I am not willing to enter a back-and-forth with you. Just know that your attitude isn't universally accepted as OK.
You are projecting and don’t seem to know the law. I do, having taken thousands of great photo’s all over Germany.
Do you want to live in a free and open society or not?
The fact is, the general public having the ability to take photo’s of the scene in front of them - idyllic or horrific - is essential to the continued operation of our society.
Familiar with the Rodney King case, by any chance?
I have the right to live in a panopticon, but no right not to live in a panopticon, and the panopticon is essential to a free and open society??
You have no respect for the culture of the place and people you're interacting with.
"Use public data, protect private data" has been one of the main reasons in the CCC since the 80s, at the same time German Law and culture is different when it comes to taking pictures than what you seem used to. Maybe familiarize yourself with it before you break the law and claim everybody else is wrong.
Maybe, before you engage in thought-blocking totalitarian-authoritarian’ism, read what I have actually said.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49743649
I have a great deal of respect for German culture - this is why I live in a DACH state in the first place.
CCC is a private event and I absolutely concur that their policies are acceptable in that circumstance.
> German Law and culture is different when it comes to taking pictures than what you seem used to
No, in fact, I am quite familiar with the law - to the extent that I am prepared to defend my position.
One thing I don’t respect, is the German proclivity to repress the public sphere. You will never beat that out of me - I have seen the positive results of public photography deliver justice in plenty of cultures where it was desperately needed.
It is perfectly fine for me to take whatever pictures I want in the public sphere - as long as I respect others’ rights and wishes to not be the subject of that photography.
As a German I find it interesting that foreigners think that this is a cultural thing.
It is not. It's the law.
In Germany you are not allowed to photograph people without their written and signed consent. Any conference or event counts as a private event when it is organized on private property. If it's not a building or space owned by the city, it is private property. This includes e.g. swimming pools owned by the Stadtwerke (there have been lawsuits because of that, all decisions in favor of privacy).
For example, even cameras that protect your property by filming the outside area are not permitted to film the street, and they have to be arranged to point towards your own property. That's why even banks have cameras always on the corners of the building, pointing back to their own property.
Again, it's the law. It's pretty strict about this sort of thing, especially because of WW2 and post WW2 times, where a lot of people died because of Stasi misinformation or Zerstörungstaktik related things.
Source: was a helper and organizer of a lot of CCC events before 2021.
GDPR/DSGVO means you have to get written consent by all visitors, otherwise you cannot make photos of the event and publish them.
Berlin has many cameras that film the street, for example in front of the Deutsche Bundesbank.
And many Germans are deeply distrustful of such cameras.
And yet that hasn't stopped them from being put up everywhere.
> Just remind them, public photography is not a crime, and that there is no right to privacy in the public sphere, and why don’t they just smile and enjoy the fact that they are frozen in time on some strangers device, just like a strangers memory they have no right to erase. This is the needed context.
Hacker events are not public places and they are free to set different rules on photography. Considering it's a privacy and counterculture thing their aversion is pretty understandable IMO.
> Hacker culture has been co-opted by a broad spectrum of folks
Seeing ourselves as better than the unwashed masses and dunking on noobs has been one of the defining characteristics of the hacker culture for as long as I remember. So was holding provocatively strong opinions about one's pet beliefs. Vi or emacs? MIT or GPL? Remember Tanenbaum dunking on Linus about how stupid his pet project was?
Granted, I wasn't around in the 1960s, but it was definitely a thing at least from the early days of Usenet.
I remember few places more toxic, than the informal IT forum of my university.
It went roughly like this, someone asking a noob question about the current course that week - and it was met by 2-5 very hostile toxic answers, variations of how stupid that person is for not knowing and how stupid for asking this way etc. And then a exhaustive, clear and friendly answer, answering exactly, what was asked.
We are literally in Hacker News where the entire spectrum is on display, all for a little up-doot.
Sure, hackers have always been an arrogant lot. But it is only this century, since the finance bro’s joined the party, that its been so, so immensely profitable ..
> Just remind them, public photography is not a crime, and that there is no right to privacy in the public sphere
Some people are not going to be convinced by an argument that amounts to "that's the way it is so suck it up". I suspect those people are over-represented at hacker conferences.
> Just remind them, public photography is not a crime, and that there is no right to privacy in the public sphere,
That maybe true in some places. But it's a lot more nuanced in Germany. The "easy" one is publishing a picture where individuals are key to the picture (not background noise) that is clearly protected and requires permission.
It becomes a lot more complex when just taking a picture and not publishing it. There are arguments about this already being problematic due to processing of personal data etc.
However at CCC it becomes easy again: It's private ground, not public. And then they can forbid and be done. Then you need a legal argument about you taking a picture being more important than their rights. And no, American freedom of speech or so doesn't work.
It’s a double-edged sword, and I concur that public photography should not be weaponized against the individual.
However, if I see a crime being committed, you can be sure I will be taking photo’s and dealing with the personal consequences later.
I am on the “public photography is not a crime and I don’t need anyone’s permission to record my personal experience” side of the debate, because I think that a society which does not allow free and open recording of events in the public sphere endangers itself, immensely.
I know it is incomprehensible to a lot of Germans, but without public photography being an open and uncontrolled activity, we wouldn’t have had the civil rights movement in the USA.
We wouldn’t know what was happening in Gaza every minute of the day.
There is a duty to protect this right in a free and open society - not just the American version of it - not just to record incivility and injustice, but also to promote the changes of culture in a society over time.
Would modern Germans have as much self awareness and responsibility for their state, if there were no candid photos of Sophie Scholl for future generations to refer to? A society which eschews such occurrences, endangers itself - indeed, censors itself. Germans are, after all, pretty much used to censoring themselves - but I think this has its limits and should not be tolerated.
So, I claim and exercise this activity because I think, as a responsible member of a society, it is important to hold the camera up - at times.
For sure, if someone asks me, I will comply with their wishes - I have no desire to confront a stranger with embarrassment or harassment by their own personal image - but I also think its necessary to resist the roboticism on this issue, particularly in Germany.
You are mixing a lot of things here. For one, taking a picture of a crime happening as capturing evidence overrules the right to one’s own image, as does the freedom of the press when capturing images of events of public interest.
However what is not okay, and I find that pretty reasonable, is taking a picture of someone else unaware of having their picture taken. I don’t want somebody taking a picture of me going about my life, no matter if I look goofy or wear an extremely cool outfit. You don’t get to take a picture of me, and I won’t take one of you either.
That does absolutely not imply that you couldn’t capture scenes of importance for whatever reason, and that happens literally all the time.
Germany sits on the 14th position of the press freedom index - the narrative you’re trying to construct about some kind of repression on documenting events in the public sphere is just not true.
>However what is not okay, and I find that pretty reasonable, is taking a picture of someone else unaware of having their picture taken.
That is covered by the law. Background subject? Okay. Foreground subject, picture taken covertly? Not okay. This is well understood.
>.. the narrative you’re trying to construct about some kind of repression on documenting events in the public sphere is just not true.
It’s only a matter of a generation or two, feeling entitled to privacy in a public space, until it is widespread ‘common knowledge’ that nobody can take pictures of anybody. That’s how these things work.
During a regular trip I observed some thugs harassing a woman and her dog in a public park in Berlin. I took their picture, they came to threaten me with violence and insist I delete it - I stalled long enough for the lady to make the call and I waited until the cops arrived.
The cops were grateful that there was a very definite picture of one of the thugs kicking her dog. They made the decision on the spot that I was not to be fined, and the lady thanked me. I sent her and the cops the picture, and I deleted it from my roll.
14th? Room for improvement, then.
Yes, if a crime is committed or such there is a reason. That over weighs other reason. But 99% of everyday situations aren't that.
Then there is the other side: some I dividuals have very good reason for not being tracked. Be it key witnesses to some major crime, somebody taking a clear side on israel-palastine-conflict. Etc. These are few, too, just like crime.
In the middle are the "normal" people. For them is maybe a potential minor nuisance if their spouse sees they weren't they assumed to be or when the boss sees them in a private outfit or something.
And then there is German culture, which did quite some research in how two different dictatorial regimes used surveillance and which effort they took and how innocent people got into Stasi files and into total surveillance.
And then we have the technology. Hiding cameras and mics is trivial these days. And cloud vendors doing facial recognition on all pictures uploaded (including faces far in the background - sometimes I am fascinated how well even my locally hosted immich works and identifies my brothers where I am not sure which one it was ... while it sometimes still fails) which makes that a tough balance.
I agree, it’s a tough balance, which is why both sides of the position need to be evaluated carefully.
I’m not advocating a return to stasi levels of surveillance (although the German state is already well and truly in those woods) .. but I also believe that in a free and open society, it should be possible to celebrate the humanity of the world we live in.
I have decades of photos’ of German life. It is an immensely beautiful country, from the perspective of that archive. I would hate for my kids to not have that opportunity.
> (although the German state is already well and truly in those woods) ..
There is an issue. I see the bigger issue in Big Tech. What Google (or Apple or palantir or ...) knows about me, even if I manage to fully block them on my side. They get about half the email I send (Germany has strong alternatives like gmx but many people use it etc.), they know who got me in their address book, when we talk, they see pictures of me when others sync their photos to Google photos, including Geo data, ... Compared to such collections the state is weak. And they are completely outside of our jurisdiction. For a German government I at least got a vote. Even if just one of 60 million (eligible voters on Germany on federal level)
> but I also believe that in a free and open society,
It however must also be free for the one who doesn't want to be on pictures. One's freedom is the other's unfreedom.
Everything you post on the internet is subject to Stasi-level surveillance. Nobody has a way to know the picture you take won't be posted on the internet.
> Just remind them, public photography is not a crime, and that there is no right to privacy in the public sphere
That is completely incorrect in Germany. If the person photographed is in any way the center of the picture and not just one of 20 people in the background, you have to ask for permission first.
If the person is in public, and they are incidental to the subject of the photo, permission is not required.
If you are taking a picture of a stranger, of course you have to ask their permission.
These two things are not the same.
FWIW, it isn't just CCC. Most previously relatively private events/groups have now acquired professional influencers ( including more recent dashcam shaming trend ), snake oil peddlers or clout chasers. We just had midwest vintage computer expo here and while some things did get better, some things parent said immediately triggered the comparison.
I don’t really understand what you’re saying, could you expand on it? MWVCE is a private event, the organizers can set the policy at the door - are you saying that folks were not willing to comply with the policies?
What triggered the comparison, specifically?
What I am saying that the cultural zeitgeist has changed sufficiently that it is very, very different from the one of only 20-30 back. Way back when I was but a wee lad, we didn't go around taking pictures of strangers for public entertainment almost regardless of public facing policies regarding said strangers. It is a very different frame of mind. I think I can officially say farewell to that world.
Do you believe in the preservation of history and culture for the benefit of the future?
I don’t take pictures of random strangers for entertainment - I take pictures of the beautiful, open, public spaces I visit, which happen to have people in them.
The notion that a society should not be free and open in this regard is, frankly, repressive.
These days we automatically blur people faces so there is no reason we can't have both
You know, I kinda used to be with you until about few years ago we went to a park in Utah, where, and I swear this is true, a line of influencers were waiting to pose for a specific landmark to preen at camera for their allotted time. In other words, I no longer care about repressive. I will even go as far as to say that some of this silliness has to be repressed.
Couldn’t disagree with you more. Do you want to live in a free and open society or not?
Where does your march to the bottom end? We are no longer allowed to take photo’s of our government without permission, perhaps?
panopticon == free and open society?
I want the freedom to not be surveilled for daring to go out in public. Get off your high horse.
As someone who also attended (both as a table and speaker) this last VCF Midwest. The biggest problem that event has is the base mercantilism.
If I'm attending that event, I want to see cool machines doing cool things and hear the stories and things people love about them.
I don't wanna see a bunch of AI slop coffee mugs and tee shirts of various old video game consoles taking up an entire fucking wall
As for mercantilism, I must confess I did buy some of those.. for my kid I swear!
I think Germany is not the same as the US in regards to expectations of privacy in public when it comes to photography. Also there are plenty of signs and warnings at CCC to respect privacy and not take pics without consent…
Yes, Germany absolutely has a right to privacy in the public sphere
It's a nuanced right that has to be weighted against other rights and societal benefits. On the street it's usually easy: your picture can contain crowds or people who are there incidentally, but if you point the camera at a person you need their consent. But at a gathering like the CCC even being an identifiable member of the crowd might create issues for people, and you have to take that into account as photographer (both ethically and legally)
>It's a nuanced right
Well, having lived there I'd describe it thus: You might get shouted at for taking a harmless picture at a conference; They brag about their great "data protection" laws, and the same same day you read in the news how yet another of their universities got hacked and how some incompetent government agency leaked the sensitive private information of hundreds of thousands of their citizens. Not that anyone cares or that anyone would get punished for it. But don't you dare forget adding cookie popups to your website or trying to build a finance app without extremely invasive and questionable KYC.
Privacy-mindedness with German characteristics.
FYI, cookie popups aren't required by law and the USA is the cause of global financial KYC. Hopefully the upcoming dedollarization fixes that.
> They brag about their great "data protection" laws, and the same same day you read in the news how yet another of their universities got hacked and how some incompetent government agency leaked the sensitive private information of hundreds of thousands of their citizens.
I would claim those people from Germany who are very privacy-minded indeed have a huge distrust of these data collections exactly because they know that sooner or later someone will crack these systems.
>if you point the camera at a person you need their consent
In public spaces (streets, squares, etc.), you may generally photograph people without consent for purely private/non-commercial purposes, as long as it is not intrusive, secretive in a way that invades privacy, or shows them in a state of helplessness, intimacy, or compromise (the latter can also trigger criminal provisions under § 201a StGB).
Casual or incidental street photography is usually fine; highly targeted or harassing photography of individuals can still violate general personality rights.
However - the key rule (Recht am eigenen Bild under §§ 22–23 Kunsturhebergesetz / KUG) mainly restricts publishing or publicly displaying recognizable images of people, not merely taking them in public.
This is a distinction many Germans do not quite comprehend - but it is also the case that it’s not very well understood in the USA, too.
Disclaimer: I am a recordist, I am responsible for a few well-received (even by the original artists themselves) bootleg recordings of famous gigs, I have a strong bias towards recording public environments and a heavy aversion to any censorship, whatsoever. Given that, however, if someone asks me not to take their picture, I first give them the option of receiving a copy for their own purposes, and if they decline, I respectfully delete.
> I have a strong bias towards recording public environments and a heavy aversion to any censorship, whatsoever.
This is a balancing of legally protected interests [Güterabwägung] between privacy and censhorship. Independently of what the law may say, many Germans are strongly biased towards privacy here. Be also aware that in Germany the strong US-American concept of "free speech" does not exist; the laws that do exist are weaker.
> Given that, however, if someone asks me not to take their picture, I first give them the option of receiving a copy for their own purposes, and if they decline, I respectfully delete.
Why not ask for permission instead of objection? (even if, as you claim, the formal written law may be on your side)
> Why not ask for permission instead of objection?
Because in most cases it was never my intention to photograph a stranger - they imposed this into the conversation by contacting me - most of the time I’m taking pictures of a lovely park, or a nice flower arrangement, or the broken beer glasses in the street after Carnival - and it is only after being interrupted that I offer the option. I certainly do not take photographs of random strangers unless it somehow captures the idyl of the scene, usually.
And in many cases actually, the conversation starts off irritable but ends quite friendly, especially if the photo is a good one and the person changes their mind and wants a copy.
It is possible to pivot from annoyance to friendliness. Especially if one understands the laws and the reasoning behind them. Ask for forgiveness, not permission.
> it was acceptable, not so long ago, to spy on ones neighbors.
It'still acceptable by the way. I had a guy whom I swear I have seen for the first and last time, allegedly my neighbour, call me by my first name and comment on my garbage-separating habits
Yes indeed, there is an undercurrent of this culture still lurking in the shadows.
I think it’s a consequence of the architecture, personally.
Germans aren’t actually used to having a lot of privacy - I often cringe when I hear my neighbor flush their toilet, and I live in an ‘innenhof’ surrounded by the noisy lives of a vast array of cultures, yelling at each other and having sex and calling their kids back in from the yards for dinner. We all live on top of each other, and for some people this is reason enough to snoop.
>garbage-separating habits
This is a make or break issue for a lot of Germans, it’s true. I personally believe its because the maintenance costs of the apartment/communal living waste admin are borne by all tenants, so this gives folks the idea that they have a ‘right’ to police each other over it.
I’ve learned my own quirks over the years, living in DACH states. I recently found myself seriously judging people by the nature and form - and indeed, strategic availability - of the house shoe spoon. If there isn’t one, you’re about to enter the house of a heathen. If there is one, but it’s small, a sadist. If it’s a long one, strategically placed right by the spot you’re expected to deposit your shoes - a mensch. If it’s wooden, a hippy mensch. If it’s metal, a right-wing mensch.
I’m sorry, Oida, I can’t help it. The shoe spoon is a social indicator! (Edit: I’m joking, a metal shoe spoon doesn’t make you a fascist - its more of a mental game I play while taking off my shoes at a new friends’ house, and I do have to say I am correcting myself on this habit of pigeon holing on the basis of the nature of ones shoe spoon, although I find it amusing as a mental game I do recognize its a prejudice I’m forming in my old age…)
Being intrusive is one thing. But this guy apparently waited until I was bringing out my garbage and go back, rushed to the paper bin to see my name and checked the quality, all without me seeing him, repeatedly, and I believe he did that with other neighbours too. That's basically a second job
In a life of comfort, the mind makes its own travails.
It sounds like a quote? If not: beautifully put
I’ve heard it around in various forms, but this is my version. Thanks.
Ugh yeah I'd hate that. Here the bins are just in the street. And nothing is personalized. People do watch what you put in but more to see if there's something valuable.
German here. I never thought this was about privacy, but there is definitely a tendency to follow the rules because they are The Rules regardless of how much sense they make - and then judge others by it, or go into Cover Your Ass mode because you fear to be judged yourself.
> If it’s a long one, strategically placed right by the spot you’re expected to deposit your shoes - a mensch. If it’s wooden, a hippy mensch. If it’s metal, a right-wing mensch.
I got a long one, made of metal, but I never knew it makes you right-wing! I just bought it because it's by far the most sturdy one available and I absolutely can't stand the plastic (or small) ones.
It doesn’t actually make you right-wing, I’m just kidding around - as someone who has broken more than my fair share of ethically sourced bamboo shoe spoons, now replaced with a metal one, I am fully taking the piss.
But, it’s more that I caught myself formulating this opinion after being in a DACH culture for some time. I think this is DACH’ness, seeping into my mindset ..
Former freelance camera operator who worked in Germany here: you are misrepresenting the legal situation. It is not automatically forbidden to take or even publish pictures of strangers, but the circumstances matter. Merely taking an identifiable person's picture can already infringe their personality rights, even without any intention to publish it. A request to delete it does not automatically settle the matter, but "we are in public" does not settle it either. See BGH, VI ZR 272/94 .
Publishing such a picture generally requires consent under § 22 KunstUrhG , with exceptions under § 23 . "There is no right to privacy in the public sphere" is simply not an accurate description of German law. And "not a crime" does not mean something cannot violate someone's rights.
The comparison with memory ignores what makes a recording different: it can be copied, distributed and matched against other records. Someone remembering my face does not give them the same capabilities as having a photograph of it.
And protecting personal information is hardly some recent corruption of hacker culture. The CCC's own ethics say "Make public data available, protect private data", an addition they date to the 1980s: CCC hacker ethics .
I think you will find that our opinions are in alignment actually. I never take pictures of strangers - in all cases where I have been asked to review such public pictures, the individuals have been incidental to the subject in focus.
CCC is a private event, though. They have every right to the policies they enforce, and I am perfectly fine with adhering to these policies when I attend - after all, I also do not want my photo in some spook database.
But, on the bus? In the park? On a sidewalk in a public street? It is unreasonable to censor these environments.
The law very stringently allows for public photography - it does not allow for weaponization or commercialization of that photography against an individual.
This is very much true. I have met some if the coolest people in CCCs but also some of the worst people. I miss the atmosphere but I don't miss the selfimportant assholes everywhere.
I just wish I could get Floral Mate here, the Tschunk is not the same without it.
ETA: it was actually the Russian invasion of Ukraine that broke my perception of German people and thus CCC for me. But that's a different story.
> it was actually the Russian invasion of Ukraine that broke my perception of German people and thus CCC for me.
Wdym?
I'm German and kinda wanna know.
My personal view on the matter is that Germany should not have - in any way - participated. There was no treatment with Ukraine. The Russian invasion was unconscionable, but ultimately doesn't matter if you hadn't entered into a defense contract before the event.
From my perspective this whole thing is like someone not paying their insurance premium and then having a random assortment of insurers offer options to them. Simply because theyre geographically close.
And it's not like the massive amount of money being thrown at them is actually being appreciated either. Yes I know they're supposedly only borrowing the money, but anyone with half a brain knows that Ukraine will default as soon as the war ends, effectively wiping the slate.
I hold the same position for any other initiatives that the German politicians throw money around for outside of its own borders
We don‘t support Ukraine because we‘re very good and selfless people. We support Ukraine (still too little!) because we don‘t want the Red Army at the Rhine.
That's a fair point, but kinda moot from my perspective considering the currently polling party results.
Both the Left part and AFD are essentially just going to sell Germany out to Russia, and the remaining parties are seemingly too inept to change the trajectory.
I think that portion of the Left party split off and made the BSW party.
Russia also has huge interference in German politics since that controls wider European politics.
Most Europeans think we aren't doing nearly enough to support Ukraine, and here you are counting your pennies. Wow. One of the worst things I've read all week.
I wholeheartedly support actually finally starting proper support instead of this slow trickle.
Yes. Thank you for perfect example.
I thought the Germans are people like us, but your values are entirely alien to me.
> And it's not like the massive amount of money being thrown at them is actually being appreciated either
Wow, if anyone was wondering how they could be on the wrong side for 3 world wars in a row, this comment helps understand.
That's harsh but probably fair.
The big irony is, Germany's dependency on Russian gas basically bankrolled the Russian invasion.
It's actually 4 now.
Isn't Ukraine basically just bearing the brunt of whatever would've happened to Germany if Ukraine didn't happen to be in the way. If you think this is only about Ukraine you're wrong.
It sounds insanely entitled to just talk about "money", you know how many Ukrainians have died and suffered so you can safely sit in Germany on your nice computer and whine about money?
> I hold the same position for any other initiatives that the German politicians throw money around for outside of its own borders
Before the Russian invasion in 2022 Germany imported on average US$25 billions worth of goods from Russia each year. Dominated by crude oil and natural gas.
https://tradingeconomics.com/germany/imports/russia
At the time it was seen as good business, because the prices were good and German economy enjoyed the benefit of cheap energy for decades. But Putin was just waiting for the real payment and the real payment is Ukraine.
It would be unfair to blame it only on Germany, because whole Europe was importing a lot of fossil fuels from Russia and financing Russian economy and Russian army, but Germany had the biggest share and biggest hope that the invasion will be quickly over.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/26/russia-ukraine...
That's just Germany for ya. Source: Am German
A shame, as a Spaniard my German boss always said that I was more German than him...never sure as to take it flattering or otherwise.
Of course he said if I was to be a German I would be from Berlin....apparently those folks can make a public budget work.
This was around the financial crisis. Not this one upcoming, the last one.
...maybe he wasnt from Germany but from another country from DACH region? :-D
Being German and being German from Berlin are not the same thing.
I'd take the Berlin thing as a compliment.
The German thing alone wouldn't be one.
while that may be average german behavior, and while that is the reason i didn't enjoy living in germany i have been to many german tech events and i have to say that they are usually not the average germans there. well, i was mainly at FOSS events, so maybe the FOSS community is what makes it different.
Are the Dutch meet-ups better? Wanted to get to why2025 but couldn’t.
They are run by different people, though there is a lot of cross contamination and groups going to both.
I think the real difference is the setup, CCC is in a exhibition hall, while events like WHY are on a field and require you to camp. In that regard, you can compare CCCamp (what is different from CCC) more with WHY.
also Electromagnetic Field in the UK, and all the smaller camps
I had a great time at PyData Amsterdam last year. Terrific people!
I always like Fosdem (in Belgium, very close.)
As an Austrian, I agree with this German :-)
Consequences of gathering a bunch of neurodivergent people. I used to go to FOSDEM but I can’t with being around so many people with poor social skills and poor showering skills again.
This is the same for all social environments. People can be bound to their ideology without ability to converse or reasoning with simplistic ideas. Often such people require a build up of interaction before the ability to persuaded them.
To the camera, some people want a historical time capsule and others want to live in the moment unarchived. People are more capable of being themselves without a picture which can redefine the moment in a thousand words which as no binding to reality. Or they want to be a ghost to limit possible future repercussions.
> This is the same for all social environments.
No, it definitely is not. But there are some that are similar. For example my partner is involved in the anime / magic the gathering / cosplay scene and I can see the parallels. Just exhausting.
But for example in the Techno / Festival scene, not just as a guest, but as a worker that much much rare to meet a person that exhausts me.
Never been to a ccc, but sadly experiences similar to yours drove me off of attending "nerd" events
Yes, my partner helps out at cos play events. Christ on a bike, there is so much drama.
> One older man out of nowhere loudly proclaimed I was Anti-semetic
There's a bit of fringe-political subculture worth knowing here. Most self-proclaimed antifascist groups in Europe are made up of leftists who side with the Palestinians, and in Germany that scene has a long history of friction with old-school "anti-imperialists", often fairly authoritarian communists. The "antideutsche" current grew out of a rejection of exactly that, dating back to reunification in 1990, when part of the radical left decided the real danger was Germany itself. It started as a mostly intellectual critique, but in practice it came to mean waving the Israeli flag at every opportunity and giving grief to anyone in a keffiyeh.
Ironically that is exactly the part of Germany that is the real danger.
> someone I met almost went into a rage every time he saw a camera.
The rage may be too much but the taboo on taking photo that is real and cultural normal that will be enforced or made to feel embarrassed for doing (i.e. 'lets not be the stasi'). That's the cultural norm of there and that scene. You visited from the states, correct? Bay area but the guess "small negative experience" - the idea of we are going around experiencing things and our life is a product of these experiences we consume and interpersonal politics - that's very california "the personal is the political" or that it's some how a consumption experience we "have" and who we "are" is coloured by these "experiences" etc (a fish in the water "what is water?")
One thing in German culture I very appreciate (as australian) is the "polite complaining" as in - you know a German cares if they will share with you what is wrong (and then they will have solution) as Australian we just complain about the big things (but never on your mates or people on your level) hehe "the government" etc - German - politely complain (and here's the patch) etc hehe In both cases it's a sort of affection or closeness if they tell you what they really think
it's not seen negative it's seen like 'of course we have feelings good and bad' etc
All generalising of course.
This could I see easily clash with american culture where often it's positivity all the time and it's seen taboo to say something bad - as if it's letting down the 'team' or it must be personal again 'you' or something - where as kinda truthfulness and integrity seen as the thing there - say as it is or as feel etc
Also another thing you might notice (probably less in Hamburg but in Berlin or something) in winter you want to go for a swim - that's the spa. Everyone is naked. This can come a shock to, say, a culture like the US that had the puritans - that people being naked is not sexualised any way. Actually the US because the norm is "naked" = "naked fun" that can lead to perhaps the most confusing cultural mishap. This might be related to photos also. For instance - in Australia it's increasingly less common people sunbath naked. In east europe and nordics - being naked in spa is just common.
Also: new years eve - they try to blow up everything. In a civilised city it blew my mind to see folks firing guns in the air.
Yes! There's some differences.
Saying that: there's assholes everywhere and don't let the 5-20% allocation of asshole influence your opinion of the 80% of the cool calm quiet
Hmmm... this comment is long... I may be the asshole. Ok,
Ciao
> Bay area but the guess "small negative experience" - the idea of we are going around experiencing things and our life is a product of these experiences we consume and interpersonal politics - that's very california "the personal is the political" or that it's some how a consumption experience we "have" and who we "are" is coloured by these "experiences" etc (a fish in the water "what is water?")
you might be giving them another small negative experience. you've certainly given me one.
Not sure anyone responsible for how you feel, but I accept you feel that way, and that is regretable! Please forgive (if something I said affected negatively), and perhaps (well ... certainly) I could be better expressing. I just typed it out in haste
> taboo on taking photo
Do Germans complain/rage every time they see a security camera?
Wasn't Germany the original country that forced google maps to censor all houses unless they opt-IN? And faces, and driving plates.
I think they are quite privacy conscious, as a country.
Google Streetview isn't opt-in, it's opt-out. But it was used so much that Google simply gave up for a while.
Blurring faces (and I assume license plates) was a thing before they started serving imagery for Germany
And quite averse/backwater (choose your version) on using debit/credit cards. Which is mindblowing from my Easter European perspective. I didn't use cash in a decade.
Unfortunately that's much less the case since COVID. Not looking forward to have more and more placed that only take panopticon-payments.
That has pretty much changed now. I rarely use cash in Berlin. About 2-3 years already...
Berlin is very different from the rest of Germany.
But not how you think, in this instance. I think Berlin has more places of questionable legality which require cash for presumably tax avoidance reasons.
germany had bank transfers as the norm when the US still fiddled around with paper cheques.
They don't see security cameras because there are very, very few in Germany and the few that exist are in train stations, or private areas like INSIDE a business, or INSIDE a private estate, pointing inwards since they're seldom allowed to film outwards
And there is a big warning if there is a security camera around. And they get destroyed pretty often.
Source: living in Berlin.
Security cameras are illegal by default in Germany. Having one is a crime punishable by jail time, if you aren't careful to follow the rules.
See how StreetView looks like there (or looked), they have trouble being photographed.
Yes. Datapoint: the underground garage of the complex where I used to live experienced a large number of thefts (including my motorbike), and in 6 years we never managed to install security cameras because you need unanimity for this, and there's always someone who is concerned about their privacy.
> the idea of we are going around experiencing things and our life is a product of these experiences we consume and interpersonal politics - that's very california "the personal is the political"
That's a very superficial reduction of the meaning of that phrase. It's worth reading the original 1969 essay with that title:
https://www.carolhanisch.org/CHwritings/PIP.html
This quote might help understand the context:
> The bad things that are said about us as women are either myths (women are stupid), tactics women use to struggle individually (women are bitches), or are actually things that we want to carry into the new society and want men to share too (women are sensitive, emotional). Women as oppressed people act out of necessity (act dumb in the presence of men), not out of choice. Women have developed great shuffling techniques for their own survival (look pretty and giggle to get or keep a job or man) which should be used when necessary until such time as the power of unity can take its place. Women are smart not to struggle alone (as are blacks and workers). It is no worse to be in the home than in the rat race of the job world. They are both bad. Women, like blacks, workers, must stop blaming ourselves for our “failures.”
The author was dealing with and responding to very real oppression, and pointing out in part that day-to-day interactions were consequences of, and contributors to, that oppression. That's one sense in which "the personal is political."
The introduction also points out where the overall insight came from:
> However, many on the SCEF [Southern Conference Educational Fund] staff, both men and women, ended up joining the criticism of women getting together in consciousness-raising groups to discuss their own oppression as “[navel]-gazing” and “personal therapy”—and certainly “not political.”
> They could sometimes admit that women were oppressed (but only by “the system”) and said that we should have equal pay for equal work, and some other “rights.” But they belittled us no end for trying to bring our so-called “personal problems” into the public arena—especially “all those body issues” like sex, appearance, and abortion. Our demands that men share the housework and childcare were likewise deemed a personal problem between a woman and her individual man.
In that context, the personal was political in a very concrete, direct sense.
> They could sometimes admit that women were oppressed (but only by “the system”)
As the saying goes, when you're privileged equality feels like oppression.
Yup.
Somewhat amazingly, John Stuart Mill addressed this as long ago as 1869 - a full hundred years before The Personal Is Political, in his essay The Subjection of Women:
> “But was there ever any domination which did not appear natural to those who possessed it? ... Those who enjoy the benefit of an institution or a social arrangement, have a strong interest in believing that it is just; and they are rarely slow in finding arguments to convince themselves of what they wish to believe."
If people feel obligated to be spazzy around cameras why would they go near an event on photography...
the ccc isn't about photography?
> At one camp, where there even was an event on photography, someone I met almost went into a rage every time he saw a camera.
So nobody should be allowed to talk about taking photos, if you aren't allowed to take photos in the surrounding week of the talk?
There was an presentation on photography at a conference with 4-5 days and 6-8 tracks, in some many years of going?
Another Australian checking in, living in a DACH country with life experience in most of them .. Germans are averse to social culpability in ways that Australians (and Americans) are not .. whereas in the US you’ll get a neighborhood watch person on your case for not cutting the grass in the right direction, in Germany you’ll get a grumpy unwashed totalitarian who literally thinks you’re gestapo because you took photos in the public park. Actually, come to think of it, you’ll get a grumpy German complaining about the grass cutting too, never mind that analogy.
Basically, westerners need to realize that the war shock is still reverberating through DACH cultures - remember, German’s were perfectly okay with having their neighborhoods ‘cleansed’ of those their state considered inferior - and then had to suffer decades of persecution for it - whereas Americans see themselves as victors in the freedom game, which is quite pathetic because the freedoms enjoyed in German streets on the regular would have half the American nation birth kittens in conniptions.
I’ll never forget how relieved I felt when I first cracked open a beer on the street in Germany. I don’t do it often, it’s not a thing I really see myself doing a lot. But just the idea of being able to take a couple beers to the park on a picnic with my new German girlfriend, and take a few naughty pictures of her (at her request and with full consent), washed away all the pretense I had, having (at the time) recently relocated from California, where I literally witnessed kids getting their heads bashed in by police for complaining about getting a ticket for having an unopened six pack in the back seat…. I don’t fear German cops, I find them completely amusing. I do everything I can to avoid American cops.
But you know .. Australians too, have their quirks in this regards. I’ve never met a more uncouth nation, frankly. The vitriol and invective I encountered, visiting my homeland again, just for speaking a bit of German on the train with my kids, was overwhelming… from little old ladies who should know better than to challenge a well-traveled cosmopolitan sandgroper on the subject of language. Oh, how their faces vacuumed into themselves once I explained that I was, in fact, Australian, and that I consider anyone who only speaks a single language vastly inferior to those who speak many - just as the original caretakers of the stolen land did!
All in, I prefer living in a DACH nation than either Australia or USA, unwashed totalitarian personalities notwithstanding. It’s just a more relaxed culture, all things considered. The war shock reverberates, but in the corners of it all you will find a lot more free thought than most of the western world.
And that’s another great reason to go to CCC and see for yourself: the freedoms of thought on display.
> One older man out of nowhere loudly proclaimed I was Anti-semetic, because I was wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh.
Yep, and tell that to anybody who got either kicked out of the country or lost their livelihood by commenting against the Palestinian genocide in the social media.
I don't believe this happened.
It's very easy to get into actual dehumanising rhetoric and genocidal slogans ("from the river to the sea"); but nobody actually cares enough to fire you for voicing your opinion on a middle eastern conflict.
Unless you're working in the US military or intelligence services, where being biased in favour of proscribed organisations can be seen as a potential for leaking state secrets to terror organisations or sanctioned states like Iran.
But that's not unique to Iran, it would be true of Russia, Cuba, North Korea- I totally understand the irony from Orange in Chief and his ties to Russia, but that's something else.
I was walking about 34c3 with an old medium format folding camera and mainly got nice comments. I did try to avoid getting people in shots though.
because with that kind of camera you are showing that photography is your hobby/passion and not just trying to shoot pictures of people who don't want to be photographed. (there was a conference recently where you could choose a different color lanyard indicating whether you didn't want to be photographed or whether you didn't mind. i think a very good approach to the issue. don't take photos of anyone with a red lanyard)
If you live in Germany and would like to experience this on a smaller scale THIS WEEKEND, come to the CCC conference in Dresden, called Datenspuren, run by our local CCC Erfa-Kreis C3D2. It takes place from 18.09 - 20.09 in Zentralwerk Dresden.
It is a beautiful and inclusive environment that highlights not only a lot local hackers, but also a lot of artists.
I was there last year and it was amazing! I totally recommend it.
You can find more info about the event and the featured talks and events here:
https://talks.datenspuren.de/ds26/talk/
https://datenspuren.de/2026/#start
21th/24th -> celebrating with family the winter solstice 25th -> visiting the extended family 26th -> visiting friends
27-30th -> congress \o/
31th -> celebrating a new year either close to the congress or with family again
Works very well for very long time. Plenty of families with kids on the congress too and you always have holidays at that time.
Im not single and i'm not 20...
That's already hectic and stressfull without the congress part, especially if any of the preparatinon for those meetups falls to you.
I do enjoy this tbh.
Driving to my family -> i know the route very well, its not much stress;
The travel to the congress is through ICE and i always kinda looking forward to these hours in the ICE too.
And weirdly enough, not that many people are on the road at that time. Its like everyone else is traveling before, then doing nothing after silvester.
I know people who are vacationing who have more stressful schedules.
Oh yeah? And I know people who do extreme sports with an extreme schedule whilst simultaneously breastfeeding. None of this invalidates the people who find any of the above to be too stressful.
I’ve been to congress, will probably attend more too. Some people find the schedule to suck, some don’t. I do not believe it will ever change. I think it is reasonable to find the schedule hectic. My pet theory that this one soft way of keeping the congress more about the chaos communications club rather than it becoming a tech/hacker conference with a strictly international audience. And that is fine.
A lot of people spend more than 1 or 2 days visiting family during Christmas time, and travel long distances to do so.
Perhaps and thats wonderful for these people but stating that only 20 and single can go to the congress is as generic as my response.
The congress was always booked out, its not that the congress has any attendance issues and its not that OP never had the chance to visit and never will have the chance to visit when his/her kids get older.
Btw. i travel too to my family
Yeah, works if you're 2h away from the venue.
Im away 6h from the venue and 3h from my family.
Come on...
Marry a hacker, and have hacker kids, problem solved :3
I actually know several people who regularly visit the 3C with their families and children. There are a lot of cool activities for kids from a certain age (10-ish). Even without all the social programm, there are plenty of talks which are interesting to non-IT people.
Go to the camp, that's in the summer time every .. 4? years.
I agree that the timing is suboptimal in a family context, or at least it was when the kids were younger. Now that they are tech-savvy teenagers, I took them with me last year, and they enjoyed exploring the congress both with me and on their own. My wife is fine with it and enjoys some me-time after Christmas.
I take the whole family. There is something for everyone there and Christmas in Germany is next level. Even kids. Every parent should want kids to see that kind of creative energy to model as they mature. My wife will not go to Defcon but she loves CCC.
Lots of families there every year and older folks too, it’s actually a great date for a lot of IT folks as there aren’t many weeks when companies are effectively shut down, maybe even only this one week.
45, married and traveling from America to go to my first CCC
Assuming you get a ticket.
I'm 43 and married and hoping to go, from the US
Many people who go enjoy the opportunity to get away from family
...or 40 and divorced
Its the perfect date for people who see all of their "real" family once per year, at CCC. Lots of couples attending obv.
Yeah, would be feasible if tickets wouldn't be so hard to get for externals. Ain't no way my partner would hang out for a year every week with me in a hackerspace
Yeah, CCC is only accessible for people who are already part of CCC for decades.
There are some token newcomers, but overall it is a very closed community.
I have absolutely no connection to CCC whatsoever and yet whenever I wanted to go to a CCC event (3 Camps and 2 Congresses so far, the first time in 2015), I could and when I wanted to take my partner with me, I could do that too. You just have to be fast to get the tickets before they're sold out, that's pretty much all there is to it.
Depends on when it was. Congress was less popular in the past so you could get a ticket.
Nowadays, most tickets go to hackerspaces and volunteers but the open sale sells out in seconds.
Camps are much easier to get to.
I did get my tickets volunteering for like a decade but last year I gave up - volunteering the whole event so I get a chance to go to the next event ... where I would volunteer the while event. That's not a good time.
Especially when there's more and more volunteers competing for work so they get a voucher - while the oldschoolers have no need for any of that because they can always get a ticket through backchannels.
Funny how CCC managed to recreate the worst aspects of capitalism as part of their leftist conference.
> Depends on when it was. (...) Nowadays, most tickets go to hackerspaces and volunteers but the open sale sells out in seconds.
2016 and 2019. That's how it was back then as well and that's what I meant by "you have to be fast" - fortunately the ordering system is reasonable and you don't have to type your data in within seconds, all you need is to be there in time. Back then there were three open sale rounds (but I see there were just two last year), I got my tickets in the second round for 33C3 and in the first one for 36C3.
I moved to central Silicon Valley where it all began hoping to have an endless supply of hackers building communities to hang out in. I can count on one hand the people that meet my definition of a hacker that do things for public good or personal curiosity rather than profit... in 10 years. It is a buy culture, not a build culture. "Engineers" who cannot install operating systems for themselves anymore and rely on a Genius Bar when they have a computer oopsie.
And Defcon... the average attendee is a corporate ghoul who only got into this for money, and has no care for anything they cannot readily leverage to further their careers. Even the privacy village has no idea how to use open source software let alone self host anything and just asks people to sign up to their slack, discord, and google groups. It is a disgrace.
But CCC really is the closest place I can go on the planet to hang out with tens of thousands of real hackers, most of which are not even employed in the industry, who just build incredible things with open source as a community because they can. Art everywhere, punk concerts in the bathrooms, their own phone networks built from scratch, underground bars built from scrap wood, no questions asked bring-your-own-server farms, and volunteer culture at its best.
Truly, going to CCC every year I can is how I get hope for the culture that might be possible in the valley again some day. I am going to do whatever it takes to bring that energy back to the valley to motivate all the smart minds here that their skills exist for more than creating shareholder value.
In the past it was "The Usual Suspects", now it is "Model Citizens". Back then smoking indoors at conferences was a topic hackers would discuss. Now I'm sure it will be a very serious conference full of grown-ups.
Will not be able to attend this year :'-) Have to ask friends to get me a "Model Citizen" shirt!
For me the smoking hall going away was a turning point in the culture at CCC for the worse. Sitting there and smoking weed with random people are some of my favorite memories. It feels less like disneyland for hackers each year
Would it be any different if the smoking area was "outside"?
Everything is gentrified at one point.
Once there is a Hollywood movie made about the event you know it’s completely gone mainstream.
Smoking areas are more a requirement of the location than anything else
Smoking indoors was discussed in the past and clearly the decision was not to allow it, because it harms others.
Cliff Stoll was at DEFCON this year, would be great for Markus Hess to be at CCC to tell his side of the story.
Link to Cliff's talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=656058JxTM0
Actually, Markus Hess already gave such a talk this year (in German, no closed captions but lots of AI-generated illustrations):
https://media.ccc.de/v/ho26-124-vom-hacker-zum-spion-die-ges...
How cool, thanks for sharing!
Now off to find the easiest way to translate the video.
whisper to the rescue - https://gist.github.com/mdp/68cd55abd73cd5dd569f62c96eb3fa83
You can burn this on top of the video with `ffmpeg -i video.mp4 -vf subtitles=video.srt -c:a copy video_subtitled.mp4`
He's great! I watched that talk couple of weeks ago. It's one of the best talks/performances I ever saw. Just give him a chance to entertain you.
How difficult is it to get a ticket as an outsider nowadays? I remember publicly available tickets selling out in like 3.5 seconds a few years ago.
I tried it last year at every slot and had no chance at all.
Lots of tickets could be found on "Kleinanzeigen" after that and I think the club was quick to get them deleted and try to contain Scalping as much as possible.
With the newer, bigger location, I hope chances are better for a solo person. Hackerspaces have a reserved package I think, but I'm not really affiliated with those in my area, so that's not really an option for me.
For now I got a hotel reservation, that's just as important... :-D
I don't think there is outsiders vs the rest. Either you propose content, accepted talks or workshops, and you can come or you buy a ticket. Everybody has the same "chance". If you miss the ticket but really want to come you can try your luck at the entrance, there are usually always some people who can't make it but it's of course a bet.
I remember a mechanism where you could redeem a single-use invite token, which would return another single-use token when consumed, which could then be chained idefinitely. Local CCC groups where given a few such tokens to get their members and friends in.
This is still a thing.
Yea, I'm trying to figure out how to attend. I've been PD approved to go, but I can't figure out how to plan around getting a ticket, booking airfare, etc
I’ll be there and bring my average model citizen CYBER collection in display cases.
I’ve ordered hundreds of thousands of stickers with this meme already. [1]
Really looking forward to the event again.
1: https://hack42.nl/wiki/Groupbuy_cyberstickers_2024
CYBER CYBER! <3
Hacker conference: against authoritarian government, with talk about security, privacy, opsec etc.
Also: can only buy ticket online with credit card and real name, no onsite sell available, your name is probably give to conference administrator for checking ticket, he will probably give it to third parties or keep it for "good reasons", etc.
Don't get me wrong, I like the talks, they are very good. It is just a bit funny for me. They can't try harder to be hackers? Or is it like this in germany always?
I believe when you sign in at the door they don't give you any identifier, just a wristband identical to everyone else's. They are trying to prevent ticket scalping, however.
I don't expect them to give any data to anyone besides the payment processor, and knowing the CCC, their own system is probably either self-hosted or at a European cloud vendor. Bank transfer is a payment option, so you don't have to use an American card network - when you use a European bank transfer, no data goes to America on purpose (they are presumably still wiretapping it).
When I was at CCCamp, there was a power outage that included the network hub, and the network was down for an additional half hour while they tried to find the person with the disk encryption password of the DHCP server.
You don't need to give them a name, and you can pay with SEPA transfer. You only need an email address, and they delete those after the event.
If you're looking for an event where you don't have to use a credit card I can recommend the Gulaschprogrammiernacht in Karlsruhe. It has a similar vibe and is funded entirely by donations and the sale of goulash.
That's the official position. I'm pretty sure, but of course I'm not suggesting you do so, that if you pay with a prepaid credit card and call yourself Random Person you will have no problem. As I said in another thread you can also just show up and buy ticket cash at the entrance from whomever sells them, but of course you risk not getting a ticket. Depends on your concerns. I'm pretty sure if you have a better solution but such large scale event you can contribute directly.
I'm also pretty sure if you have something genuinely uniquely valuable to contribute but can only participate anonymously you can contact organizers and they'll find a way, regardless of ticket availability.
That's for the likes of Edward Snowden though.
> Hacker conference: against authoritarian government, with talk about security, privacy, opsec etc.
> Also: can only buy ticket online with credit card and real name, no onsite sell available, your name is probably give to conference administrator for checking ticket, he will probably give it to third parties or keep it for "good reasons", etc.
I am indeed quite certain that many hackers in Germany independently already devised the same thoughts ...
Go to the local smaller CCC conferences, where you can pay with things like GNU Taler or cryptocurrency, and the entry is often free anyway, with a donation being appreciated or buying event merch being a nice alternative to simply donating.
I think the hacker spirit is definitely alive & kicking in those smaller CCC events.
I'd never heard of GNU Taler but the FAQ left me even more confused.
> Can I send money to my friends with Taler? Taler supports push and pull payments between wallets (also known as peer-to-peer payments). While the payment appears to be directly between wallets, technically the operation is intermediated by the payment service provider which will typically be legally required to identify the recipient of the funds before allowing the transaction to complete.
Also the funds have an expiration date (forced spending). Who is this for? My naive read seems like it has all the downsides of bitcoin and more with none of its upsides
It's the usual open source problem of building a protocol and neglecting the network that runs it... Imagine a perfectly coherent messaging protocol... what are the messages that are sent? Out of scope! Just use our protocol!
The doc won't point it out explicitly and I apologize if my explanation offends anybody, but the intention is basically leftist, state-friendly bitcoin. The authors took a look at the anarchy of real cryptocurrencies and realized they don't actually like anarchy, so instead they want to make something "wholesome" that governments would be willing to go along with (since they can tax it).
They are funded by EU and banks in an attempt to claw back some market share from cryptocurrencies which are slowly getting banned.
> The doc won't point it out explicitly and I apologize if my explanation offends anybody, but the intention is basically leftist, state-friendly bitcoin. The authors took a look at the anarchy of real cryptocurrencies and realized they don't actually like anarchy, so instead they want to make something "wholesome" that governments would be willing to go along with (since they can tax it).
While this is correct, I want to add a point:
Many hackers are not per se opposed to taxation (how else should public services be financed), but deeply distrustful about the red tape involved (the taxation laws in Germany are insanely complicated). Basically, their attitude is: if the government wants to tax "my" cryptocurrency, it is the government's responsibility to make the taxation laws as elegant, privacy-conscious and hassle-free as humanly possible.
In other words: if the government does not create taxation laws that are as hassle-free and privacy-conscious as possible (in a very strong sense: if in terms of effort (including the time to understand and apply the laws), it is much easier to ignore the laws than to turn in your taxes, the government failed its job), the government failed its job, so it does not deserve a concession from the cryptocurrencies' developers side.
Unfortunately that's accurate. From the SNB whitepaper linked at https://www.taler-systems.com/en/digital-currency.html you get to https://www.snb.ch/de/publications/research/working-papers/2... and then to https://www.snb.ch/public/asset/de/www-snb-ch/publications/r... :
> In addition, charging an exchange fee would allow the central bank to implement negative interest rates, if deemed necessary. The central bank could also impose a conversion limit per customer for AML/CFT (“cash” limits) or financial stability reasons (to prevent hoarding or bank runs), if desired.
Well goody.
The idea of blind signatures is cool, as is the fact that the merchant doesn't need to identify the customer, as is the fact that you could deploy neat local currencies with something like this, but AFAIK you still can't give 20€ to your friend without the exchange knowing and approving, or it becoming a race to see who spends the tokens corresponding to the 20€. And that's not very privacy-preserving.
IIRC isn't part of the idea that there are multiple central banks, you can choose which one you want to use, and currencies are exchanged automatically when needed?
Good summary.
To others reading, it's just gimped Chaumian ecash, as the privacy is removed for the receiver. It actually seems like it could be useable now (was just terrible for a long time) but Cashu (bitcoin based ecash) is streets ahead.
The organisation has to still pay their suppliers, and have to comply with anti money laundering laws
I can pay cash at store, cinema, museum and not give my name. Why not at conference too? And it is not only this conference, all of them require it now.
Think about it :)
Yeah honestly fair point
Though I imagine it’s more about getting upfront payment for tickets to cover suppliers
I mean, DEF CON still allows cash at the door with no ID and manages to make it work.
Do they sell out of tickets within, literally literally, three seconds?
Hopefully this move to the bigger venue improves the situation.
The politics of C3 is mixture of older anarcho communist hackers and contemporary progressive statists. So against authoritarian government, if it's right-wing, and privacy to protect against surveillance capitalism (rather than from the state).
So things like bitcoin are not liked as they're outside of the state and money should be a function of a benevolent left-wing state.
I'm pretty sure you are making a straw man here. Bitcoin is disliked because it's hyper-capitalist and a huge waste of energy, not because it isn't the state.
I wondered if that was a pun implying "AI models" were also being invited, given they've been the most prominent hackers as of late ;-)
Not yet, I guess!
It's often been a pun combining the technological and political, at least in recent years. Last year's motto was Power Cycles. The previous year was Illegal Instructions. The one before COVID was Resource Exhaustion and the one before that was Refreshing Memories.
Is it still so hard to get a ticket? In previous years I've looked at getting one but they seemed to be sold out constantly.
There are two open sale dates and they sell out 1s after the start.
Holy moly people feel entitled about joining a volunteer run (even things like health and security) organization.
Today: CCC invites all model citizens.
Next up: "CCC is mostly a sex cult" [231 points, 180 comments]
Did anyone tell you the story of the disastrous attempt to organise a gay trans furry orgy as a conference event at one CCC?